PPEAL 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH 


AN 


APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM,  AND  ITS 
RADICAL  SOLUTION 


NEW  YORK 

FORDS,  HOWARD  &  HULBERT 

1890 


COPYRIGHT,  1889, 
BY  FORDS,  HOWARD  &  HULBERT. 


Press  of  W.  L.  Mershon  &  Co., 
Rahway,  N.  J. 


NOTE. 

IT  should  be  said,  perhaps,  that  this  book  was 
written  in  the  winter  of  1887-88,  with  a  view  to  its 
publication  in  the  summer  of  1888.  Circumstances 
having  delayed  its  appearance,  however,  a  few  minor 
changes  and  additions  have  been  rendered  possible, 
mainly  in  the  character  and  recent  dates  of  t'.ie  notes 
of  reference,  showing  how  continuous  and  active  are 
the  conditions  that  gave  rise  to  the  book. 

This  explanation,  it  is  hoped,  will  commend  the 
work  to  the  thoughtful  reader,  and  relieve  it  of  any 
idea  of  having  been  inspired  by  recent  political  events. 
The  argument  has  lost  nothing  of  its  pertinence,  at 
least,  by  reason  of  the  delay  which  has  been  noted, 
and  is  wholly  independent  of  party  policies  and  ends. 
It  is  an  appeal  to  the  whole  People,  on  a  matter 
of  vital  interest  to  the  whole  Country. 

September  i,  1889. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


224077 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

I.  A  SECTIONAL  UNION, 5 

II.  THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE,        .....  15 

III.  THE  CONTINUING  CAUSE 25 

IV.  A  RACE-QUESTION,      .        .        .        .        .        .  33 

V.  THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION,         .  .     41 

VI.  RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH,        .        .  61 

VII.  A  TRILEMMA, .102 

VIII.  THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION, 120 

IX.  RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS,       .        .        .        .  .131 

X.  RECKONINGS  OF  COST,         .....  146 

XI.  WILL  HE  Go  ? .164 

XII.  OUR  DUTY, 19$ 


iii 


AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

THE   NEGRO   PROBLEM  AND  ITS  RADICAL 
SOLUTION. 


I. 

A  SECTIONAL  UNION. 

WHEN  the  war  between  the  States  ended  in 
1865,  Negro  Slavery  disappeared  from  the  North 
American  Continent.  The  victors  and  the  van 
quished  in  the  struggle  alike  congratulated  them 
selves  that  their  long  standing  cause  of  quarrel 
had  disappeared  with  it ;  that  the  coming  years 
contained  no  prospect  of  a  renewal  of  the  old 
controversies ;  and  that  their  children  would 
grow  up  together  the  joint  heirs  of  a  Union  more 
peaceful,  more  powerful,  and  "more  perfect" 
than  themselves  or  their  fathers  had  ever  known. 

Certainly  most  of  us  cherished  the  hope,  the 
belief,  when  the  first  flush  of  triumph,  or  the  first 
keen  pang  of  defeat,  had  given  place  to  sober  re 
flection  concerning  the  future  of  our  common 
country,  that  the  only  obstacle  to  the  cordial 
union  of  the  peoples  of  the  long  divided  and 
lately  warring  "  sections  "  had  been  removed  at 
last,  and  that  they  would  go  forward  thenceforth 

5 


6 


Atf  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 


united  and  unimpeded  in  the  fulfilment  of  their 
happy  and  high  destiny  among  the  nations. 

We  have  been  disappointed. 

True,  there  have  been  great  and  radical 
changes,  social,  political,  industrial,  and  other 
wise,  in  the  conditions  of  the  country, — in  the 
conditions  of  the  Southern  States  particularly ; 
but  these  changes  have  not  brought  us  nearer 
together.  On  every  hand,  and  at  all  times,  is 
heard  a  chorus  of  voices  proclaiming  that  the 
Union  is  restored,  and  has  become  again  "  the 
Union  of  our  fathers."  Alas,  it  is  nothing  more! 

The  old  questions  disturb  us  in  new  shapes; 
our  distrusts  and  differences  are  none  the  less 
real  and  deep  and  wide  for  being  denied  or  thinly 
covered  over.  Athwart  the  map  of  the  Republic 
runs,  as  plainly  and  sharply  defined  as  ever,  the 
line  across  which  we  fought  to  the  death  a  few 
years  ago.  The  two  sections  are  sections  still. 
The  two  peoples  are  two  peoples  still,  differing  in 
character,  and  interests,  and  aims ;  having  not 
much  in  common,  indeed,  save  a  common  gov 
ernment,  re-established  by  force. 

The  participation  of  the  true  "  representatives  " 
of  the  one  section  in  the  administration  of  that 
government  is  still  regarded  with  unconcealed 
jealousy  and  distrust  by  the  great  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  other  section  ;  the  election  and 
appointment  of  these  representatives  to  office 
provoke  renewed  and  widespread  irritation  and 
complaint  as  often  as  they  occur  ;  the  sentiments 


A    SECTIONAL    UNION1.  7 

of  sectional  dislike  and  antagonism  find  constant 
and  bitter  expression  even  in  the  National  coun 
cils  ;  the  first  and  second  places  in  the  govern 
ment  are  perfectly  well  understood,  on  both 
sides,  to  be  beyond  the  aspiration  of  any  citizen 
of  the  restored  Union  who  is  identified  with  the 
losing  side  in  the  war  which  ended  nearly  twenty- 
five  years  ago. 

There  should  be  no  exaggeration  of  the  facts 
here  stated.  There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by 
ignoring  them,  or  pretending  to  ignore  them. 
They  cannot  be  brushed  aside  or  explained  away. 
The  writer  has  no  desire  or  motive  to  make  our 
case  appear  worse  than  it  is.  It  is  bad  enough 
at  the  best.  The  substance  of  what  is  asserted 
is  that  the  familiar  and  fateful  terms  "  the  South  " 
and  "  the  North "  still  mean,  practically,  what 
they  have  always  meant  in  our  history — no 
more,  no  less — and  the  intelligent  and  honest 
reader  requires  surely  but  to  study  and  interpret 
the  events  and  the  signs  and  the  sayings  of  the 
times  to  make  the  statement  clear  to  his  own 
mind,  without  the  risk  of  misconception,  and  to 
convince  himself  of  its  truth. 

It  is  not  practicable  or  necessary  to  present  the 
evidences  here.  It  is  not  practicable  because 
they  would  fill  many  volumes.  It  is  not  neces 
sary  because  they  are  everywhere ;  are  not  hid 
den  ;  and  cannot  be  missed.  The  literature  of 
the  Reconstruction  Era  is  crowded  with  them ; 
and  contains  little  else.  And  whether  we  con- 


8  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

sider  that  that  Era  closed  in  1876,  or  in  1884,  the 
volume  of  evidence  is  still  open  and  growing. 
The  recent  files  of  the  Congressional  Record  and 
of  every  newspaper  and  magazine  in  the  land, 
from  the  greatest  to  the  least,  afford  a  mass  of 
proof  to  which  a  new  chapter  is  added  daily.  A 
striking  but  most  dispassionate  statement  of  our 
dual  condition  as  a  nation,  so  late  as  in  1884,  was 
made  by  an  able,  well-informed,  and  thoroughly 
patriotic  writer,  Judge  Albion  W.  Tourg£e,  in 
his  book,  An  Appeal  to  Ccesar,  which  was  pub 
lished  in  that  year.  Since  then  we  have  had  the 
deliberate  testimony  of  a  distinguished  Senator 
from  Ohio,  one  of  the  most  eminent  statesmen  of 
our  time,  and  recently  a  conspicuous  candidate 
for  Presidential  honors,  which  was  delivered, 
from  a  carefully  written  speech,  at  Springfield, 
Ohio,  two  years  ago.  Besides  this  may  be  cited 
particularly  the  declarations  of  other  high  au 
thorities,  made  in  connection  with  the  proposi 
tion  to  return  the  captured  Confederate  flags  to 
their  former  guardians  ;  with  the  consideration  in 
the  last  Congress  of  the  various  general  pension 
bills;  with  the  appointment  and  confirmation  of 
Minister  Lawton  and  Justice  Lamar;  with  the 
discussion  of  the  character  and  conduct  of  emi 
nent  Northern  statesmen  and  generals ;  with  the 
debates  on  the  civil  service  and  tariff  reform 
questions ;  and,  finally,  general  reference  may  be 
made  to  the  numerous  formal  deliverances  of 
divers  political,  religious,  and  other  public  bodies 


A  SECTIONAL   UNION.  9 

which  have  directly  or  indirectly  passed  upon 
questions  relating  to  recent  or  remote  sectional 
issues,  or  growing  out  of  them. 

We  need  not  attach  too  much  importance  to 
the  utterances  of  any  or  all  of  these  weighty  and 
widely  scattered  authorities.  We  should  not  at 
tach  too  little.  It  is  the  highest  order  of  human 
testimony;  and  is  all  to  the  same  effect.  When 
both  its  quantity  and  quality  are  considered,  to 
gether  with  its  entire  agreement  throughout,  it 
is  conclusive  of  the  subject  to  which  it  is  di 
rected.  There  is  indeed  as  plain,  as  positive,  and 
as  much  testimony  to  the  continued  and  pro 
found  estrangement  of  the  people  of  the  two  sec 
tions  as  could  reasonably  be  expected  to  be  given 
under  the  circumstances  of  their  peculiar  rela 
tions  as  victors  and  vanquished  in  a  recent  great 
and  bloody  war ;  and  when  these  circumstances 
are  taken  fully  into  account,  the  evidences  that 
are  presented  must  be  regarded  as  not  less  sig 
nificant  of  the  existence  of  an  underlying  fact  in 
our  national  condition  than  were  the  unreserved 
and  open  declarations  of  the  public  men  and 
the  public  press — on  both  sides  of  the  sectional 
line — as  to  the  existence  of  the  same  fact  prior 
to  1861. 

Most,  if  not  all,  of  the  testimony  that  has  been 
referred  to  has  been  given  by  Northern  men,  who 
spoke  in  sorrow  or  in  anger,  according  to  the  cir 
cumstances  under  which  they  testified.  Both 
these  emotions,  however,  prompt  the  utterance 


10  AN  APPEAL    TO  PHARAOH. 

of  truth,  or  what  is  believed  to  be  the  truth. 
What  was  said  was  sincere  at  least,  and  is  entitled 
therefore  to  be  received  with  more  respect  than 
the  expressions  of  more  politic  men,  which  have 
been  shaped  by  their  patriotic  wishes  rather  than 
their  secret  convictions.  The  people  of  the 
North  do  not  wish  to  believe  that  the  people 
of  the  South  are  estranged  from  them,  in  any 
sense,  or  to  any  degree.  The  people  of  the  South, 
to  render  them  bare  justice,  do  not  wish  to  re 
main  estranged,  or  to  be  regarded  as  separate  and 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  nation,  on  any  grounds. 
The  result  of  the  war  demonstrated  their  relative 
weakness  as  a  distinct  community,  and  they  are 
becoming  relatively  weaker  every  year,  as  they 
know  well.  The  symbol  and  the  substance  of 
their  former  power  have  departed  from  them  for 
ever  ;  and  this  they  know.  They  can  expect  to 
derive  no  advantage  or  benefit  from  maintaining 
a  sectional  organization,  now  or  hereafter.  Their 
first  desire  is  to  regain  a  footing  of  perfect  confi 
dence  and  equality,  marked  by  no  line  of  division, 
among  the  rest  of  the  people  of  the  Union.  Prin 
ciple  and  policy ;  regard  for  the  lessons  of  the 
past  and  their  hopes  for  the  future  ;  every  con 
sideration  that  appeals  to  their  selfish  interests, 
their  sense  of  duty,  their  love  for  their  children 
and  for  the  land  of  their  birth,  impel  them  to 
seek  earnestly  to  undo  the  fatal  error  which  they 
committed  when  they  left  the  house  of  their  fa 
thers,  No  Southern  man  has  been  heard  to  utter 


A  SECTIONAL  UNION.  II 

one  sentiment  to  encourage  the  idea  of  the  main 
tenance  of  even  the  shadow  of  a  Southern  Con 
federacy,  since  the  Union  was  restored.  The 
madness, the  folly,  of  such  an  organization,  on 
whatever  basis,  within  whatever  lines,  is  recog 
nized,  and  has  been  recognized  since  the  civil  war 
ended,  alike  by  the  most  obstinate  disciple  of  the 
dogma  of  State  Sovereignty  and  the  most  igno 
rant  of  his  followers.  The  whole  hope  of  the 
South  depends  upon  its  recovering  its  former 
place  in  the  Union.  Its  unqualified  desire  and 
aim  is  to  recover  this  as  perfectly  and  as  speedily 
as  possible.  There  has  been,  therefore,  little  or 
no  assertion  by  Southern  men  of  the  existence  of 
conditions  or  sentiments  of  continued  estrange 
ment  in  the  South  ;  and  there  will  be  none.  The 
evidence  need  not  be  looked  for  in  this  form  or 
from  this  quarter.  Nevertheless,  it  can  readily 
be  found ;  it  cannot  be  overlooked. 

The  Solid  South  speaks  for  the  Silent  South, 
and  the  one  unquestionable  fact  of  its  solidity — 
however  justified — isthe  sufficient  and  unimpeach 
able  witness  to  the  maintenance  of  fixed  sectional 
limits,  and  unreconciled  sectional  antagonisms,  of 
some  kind. 

Let  us  avoid  all  danger  of  misapprehension  on 
this  difficult  and  grave  subject.  No  sane  man — 
certainly  no  man  who  knows  the  real  sentiment 
of  the  Southern  people  towards  the  Union  as  it 
was  and  is — believes  for  an  instant  that  the  peo 
ple  of  any  Southern  State  would  secede  to-mor- 


12  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

row,  if  they  could  go  unchallenged.  Secession — 
separation  by  any  means — is  forever  out  of  ques 
tion,  and  out  of  mind.  The  overthrow  of  the 
principle  is  not  so  much  as  regretted.  This,  at 
least,  has  been  gained  by  war,  and  it  is  a  great 
deal  to  have  gained,  in  any  event.  Perhaps  it  is 
worth  all  that  it  cost.  On  both  sides  there  is  now 
the  sincere  and  earnest  desire  for  "  a  more  perfect 
union,"  that  was  confined  to  one  side  before  the 
attempt  at  division  was  made.  This,  too,  has 
been  gained,  and  it  is  the  greatest  result  attained 
by  the  war,  since  it  places  the  Union  on  a  firmer 
foundation  than  ever  before.  The  most  serious 
error  that  the  people  of  the  North  have  com 
mitted  since  the  war  has  been  in  not  recognizing 
and  acting  on  this  natural  and  assured  change  in 
the  sentiment  of  Southern  men,  of  all  classes, 
but  mainly  of  the  most  intelligent  class.  There 
has  been  enough  of  troubles  in  the  South  in  its 
new  condition,  but  none  of  them  has  been  due 
to  lack  of  loyalty  to  the  restored  Union  itself. 
There  is  undoubtedly,  in  short,  as  sincere  and  ar 
dent  a  desire  for  a  cordial  and  complete  reconcil 
iation  and  reunion  on  the  part  of  the  people  of 
the  South,  as  there  is  on  the  part  of  the  people 
of  the  North.  Whatever  degree  of  estrangement 
exists  is  due,  not  to  the  choice  of  either  side,  but 
to  circumstances  which  neither  side  is  wholly 
responsible  for,  and  which  are  now  beyond  the 
control  of  either  side  alone.  The  hope  of  the 
future  of  this  country  rests  on  the  common  re- 


A    SECTIONAL    UNION.  13 

gard  of  both  sides  for  the  Union,  on  their  common 
desire  for  reconciliation,  and  on  their  joint  action 
for  the  common  good  which  this  common  regard 
and  desire  shall  inspire  them  to  undertake. 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  these  gains,  and  this 
common  disposition  and  desire,  the  two  peoples 
are  still  far  apart.  Regret  it,  explain  it,  as  we 
may,  the  persistent  truth  comes  to  us  constantly 
in  countless  disquieting  forms,  to  mock  our  hope 
and  vain  self-deception.  The  Union  of  to-day 
is  at  last  but  the  Union  of  yesterday,  in  fact , 
an  indissoluble  alliance  of  the  North  and  the 
South, — not  a  union  of  the  People  of  the  whole 
country. 

Is  it  not  so  ?  The  very  existence  and  oft- 
repeated  expression  of  a  desire  for  a  closer  union 
is  evidence  that  that  desire  has  not  been  fulfilled. 
On  how  many  occasions,  every  year,  are  we  as 
sured  that,  now  the  Union  is  certainly  restored, 
and  sectionalism  is  no  more.  We  have  heard  this 
over  and  over  again  nearly  every  day  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  Each  new  assertion  but  shows 
how  little  of  truth  there  was  in  the  last. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  press  this  view  farther, 
or  to  qualify  it  in  the  particulars  in  which  it  may 
be  qualified.  The  truth  is  better  known  by  every 
man  in  the  Republic  than  it  can  be  told  to  him. 
Let  the  reader  consider  for  himself  how  near  to 
gether  in  sentiment,  in  sympathy,  in  true  national 
spirit,  are  the  people,  for  instance,  of  Connecticut 
and  California ;  of  South  Carolina  and  Texas ; 


14  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

how  far  apart  are  the  people  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia,  of  Ohio  and  Kentucky;  and  he  cannot 
miss  the  meaning  of  what  is  asserted,  or  deny  its 
verity. 

The  deliberate  testimony  of  three  United  States 
Senators,  not  uttered  in  the  heat  of  debate 
and  without  weighing  their  words,  but  committed 
to  writing  and  published  after  careful  revision, 
ought  to  be  conclusive,  at  any  rate.  All  that  has 
been  said  in  this  chapter  as  to  our  divided  state, 
is  said  in  much  more  forcible  terms  in  the  speech 
of  Senator  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  already  men 
tioned  ;  in  an  article  contributed  by  Senator  J.  J. 
Ingalls,  of  Kansas,  to  the  June,  1888,  number  of 
the  North  American  Review,  and  by  Senator  Wm. 
E.  Chandler,  of  New  Hampshire,  in  the  Forum 
for  July,  1888.  These  Senators  are  among  the 
foremost  statesmen  and  representatives  of  the 
Eastern,  Middle,  and  Western  States.  Their 
views  are  in  entire  accord  with  each  other,  and  to 
gether  compel  acceptance,  if  there  were  ground 
for  doubt  before.  Their  words  are  on  record,  and 
need  not  be  repeated  here. 

The  fact  of  a  divided  country  is  recognized  and 
asserted  on  all  hands.  It  cannot  be  set  aside  with 
out  setting  aside  the  plainest,  strongest  evidence 
in  which  it  could  be  presented.  We  may  deal 
with  it  as  a  hard,  cold,  ugly  fact,  temporarily  and 
thinly  disguised,  undoubtedly ;  but  a  fact,  never 
theless,  and  one  which  the  revival  of  a  single  polit 
ical  issue  would  certainly  expose  in  all  its  ugliness, 


II. 

THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE. 

BUT  if  the  fact  of  division,  of  the  continued 
existence  of  two  sections  in  the  Union,  is  plain 
and  well  known,  is  not  the  cause  of  such  division 
equally  plain  and  notorious?  Has  it,  indeed,  ever 
been  hidden,  or  even  obscure  ?  Does  any  intel 
ligent  and  honest  man,  North  or  South,  doubt 
where  it  is  to  be  found,  or  what  it  is  ?  Every  day 
it  confronts  us  anew,  as  it  has  confronted  us 
through  all  these  many  years,  and  compels  recog 
nition  and  consideration  and  action.  We  could 
not  avoid  stumbling  over  it,  if  we  would,  and  we 
have  stumbled  often  enough  and  fallen  more  than 
once.  We  are  not  yet  a  united  people,  because 
we  are  not  yet  a  homogeneous  people.  And  we 
are  not  a  homogeneous  people  because  of  the 
presence  and  potent  operation  of  an  important 
and  pervading  factor  in  the  social  and  civil  life  of 
the  one  section  which  is  absent  from  or  exerts 
scarcely  an  appreciable  direct  influence  on  the  life 
of  the  other  section.  We  need  not  mince  words, 
nor  multiply  them.  The  presence  of  the  Negro, 
in  so  largely  disproportionate  numbers,  is  the  one 
distinguishing  and  differentiating  characteristic 
of  the  condition  of  the  South,  as  it  has  been  from 


1 6  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

the  beginning;  and  as  to  this  special  and  impor 
tant  feature  of  its  condition  we  must  attribute 
whatever  is  peculiar  to  that  section,  so  likewise  to 
its  peculiarities,  thus  produced,  we  must  attribute 
its  inharmonious  and  isolated  position  in  the  Re 
public,  and  the  diversity  of  character,  opinion, 
and  sentiment  between  the  two  peoples,  North 
and  South,  of  which  that  isolation  is  the  stub 
born,  conspicuous,  and  fateful  token. 

Is  not  this  true?  Here  is  a  notable  and  con 
spicuous  fact  in  our  past  and  present  history,  at 
all  events. 

The  North  has  stretched  away,  unhindered  in 
its  growth,  adding  States  and  countries  to  its 
territory,-  until  it  reaches  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean  ;  and  very  much  of  that  growth 
has  taken  place  since  the  war  ended  and  the 
slave  was  made  free.  The  population  of  the 
whole  extended  section,  composed  as  it  is  of  the 
most  diverse  elements,  drawn  from  many  and 
widely  removed  lands,  are  practically  one  in  sen 
timent,  in  purpose — in  all  that  goes  to  make  of  a 
people  one  nation. 

The  South  remains  separate  and  apart  from 
the  newer  North  and  the  old  North  alike ;  and  is 
further  removed,  perhaps,  in  respect  of  sympathy 
and  harmony,  from  the  newer  North  than  from 
the  old — if  that  be  possible. 

The  sun,  from  its  rising  to  its  setting,  shines  on 
a  united  people  spread  across  the  whole  extended 
Continent,  and  ever  growing  more  numerous, 


THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE.  17 

more  closely  identified,  and  more  powerful — the 
people  of  the  old  and  the  new  "  Free  States"  of 
the  American  Union,  the  only  truly  united  States 
of  our  post-Revolutionary  history. 

A  cloud  hangs  forever  and  far  along  the  skirts 
of  this  grand  march  of  Empire — to  the  south 
ward.  The  "  South,"  as  such,  has  grown  only 
with  the  growth  of  its  negro  population ;  its 
western  border  is  fixed,  half-way  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  at  the  line  where  the  extension  of  that 
population  was  arrested,  a  quarter  century  ago, 
by  the  shock  of  war.  The  shadow  of  slavery  still 
rests  on  the  whole  region  that  slavery  blighted. 
The  darkness  of  the  Dark  Continent  lies  upon 
the  fairest,  richest  portion  of  the  New  World. 
Its  forests  and  mineral  fields  are  exploring-ground 
for  the  rest  of  the  country.  Africa  is  grafted  on 
America.  It  is  "  the  South  "  that  it  was  from  1787 
to  1860 — a  separate  South,  a  solid  South,  a  shad 
owed  South,  an  undeveloped  South — and  "  the 
South  "  it  is  doomed  to  remain  until  the  cause — 
the  marked,  alien,  and  unassimilable  element  of 
its  population,  that  made  it  what  it  was  and 
is ;  binding  it  together  and  excluding  it  from 
genuine  and  cordial  sympathy  with  the  life  and 
thought  and  purpose  and  achievement  of  the 
rest  of  the  Republic — is  removed.  This  is  plain 
speaking.  There  is  need  for  plain  speaking.  We 
have  trifled  with  each  other  and  deceived  our 
selves  long  enough. 

No  matter,  now,  who  is  to  be  blamed  for  his 


1 8  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

presence  here,  or  who  are  responsible  for  his  mis 
fortunes  and  the  misfortunes  he  has  caused  or 
occasioned  us, — is  not  the  fact  of  the  ill  plight  of 
the  Negro,  and  of  the  injurious  effects  of  his  pres 
ence  on  the  conditions  of  the  one  section,  and 
the  relations  of  the  two  sections,  plain  and  incon 
trovertible? 

If  there  is  any  honest  doubt  on  this  subject, 
however,  it  should  be  satisfied.  The  future  peace 
and  happiness  of  the  Republic  depend  on  this  gen 
eration  of  its  citizens  understanding  the  Negro 
Question  aright,  and  on  the  right  use  of  such 
understanding.  Can  we  not  then,  as  reasonable 
men,  put  aside  personal  and  sectional  feeling, 
and  agree  upon  the  bare  conditions  of  our  na 
tional  existence  and  of  the  grave  problem  with 
which  we  are  confronted? 

Let  the  main  proposition  be  set  forth  again,  in 
the  plainest  terms  :  The  Negro  was  the  cause  of 
the  division  of  the  United  States  into  the  two  sec 
tions,  the  North  and  the  South,  and  has  been  the 
cause  of  all  the  strife  that  has  taken  place  between 
those  sections  since  the  independence  of  the  col 
onies  was  established.  An  innocent  cause,  as 
suredly.  A  remote  or  indirect  cause  sometimes, 
it  may  be  conceded.  But  the  one,  real,  first  cause, 
always.  Let  us  not  quibble  about  words.  What 
is  meant  is  that,  but  for  the  presence  of  the  Negro 
in  the  United  States  there  would  have  been  no 
division  of  the  country  on  sectional  lines  as  we 
have  known  them,  no  North,  no  South,  no  Nulli- 


THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE.  10 

fication,  no  Secession,  and  probably  no  civil  war 
over  any  question  !  A  wide  and  interesting  field 
for  speculation  opens  to  us  here,  but  we  need  not 
enter  it,  for  the  present  at  least.  It  is  enough  if 
we  can  haply  agree  on  the  facts  of  our  national 
history. 

The  main  fact  which  is  asserted  is  that  that 
history  has  turned  upon  the  Negro,  and  the  Negro 
Question,  from  first  to  last. 

The  rift  between  the  North  and  the  South  ap 
peared  plainly  in  the  Philadelphia  Convention  of 
1787,  as  every  one  of  our  historians  tells  us,  and 
it  has  steadily  widened  ever  since.  It  was  seen 
by  the  delegates  to  the  Convention,  whose  divis 
ion  on  the  Negro  question,  as  it  was  presented 
to  them  for  the  first  time,  foreshadowed  the  fatal 
division  of  the  whole  people  in  1861.  On  the 
floor  of  the  Convention  Mr.  Madison  "  contended 
that  the  States  were  divided  into  different  inter 
ests,  not  by  their  difference  in  size,  but  by  other 
circumstances;  the  most  important  of  which  re 
sulted  from  climate,  but  principally  from  the 
effects  of  their  having  or  not  having  slaves. 
These  two  causes  concurred  in  forming  the  great 
division  of  interests  in  the  United  States.  It  did 
not  lie  between  the  large  and  small  States  ;  it  lay 
between  the  Northern  and  Southern."  * 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  trouble,  but  we 
need  not  trace  its  development  step  by  step.  It 
should  be  said,  however,  that  difference  in  climate 

*  Madison  Papers,  p.  1006. 


2o  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOtf. 

did  not  have  the  importance  which  Mr.  Madison 
assigned  to  it,  or  that  has  been  assigned  to  it  since 
his  day.  The  State  line  between  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania  has  never  marked  so  wide  a  varia 
tion  of  climate  that  the  Negro  or  slavery  could 
thrive  on  but  one  side  of  it.  Virginia  and  Ohio 
are  in  the  same  latitude,  yet  Ohio  has  never  been 
identified  with  the  South  on  any  sectional  issue. 
The  presence  of  its  negro  population  alone  carried 
Virginia  into  the  Southern  Confederacy,  when 
Ohio  and  Pennsylvania  remained  in  the  Union. 
Slavery  alone,  not  slavery  and  climate,  has  marked 
the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  North  and  the 
South,  from  Mr.  Madison's  time  down.  The  one 
true  cause  of  division  which  he  indicated  in 
the  Convention  at  Philadelphia  was  made  plain 
enough  in  the  Congress  of  1860— 61,  when  it  was 
proclaimed  in  terms  that  leave  no  room  for  doubt 
or  dispute  as  to  its  recognition,  and  the  map  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy  adds  demonstration  to 
assertion. 

We  are  told  still,  indeed,  that  the  war  in  which 
our  differences  culminated  was  waged  in  defence 
of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States  and  the  right  of 
self-government,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  on  the  other.  The 
dogma  of  State  Sovereignty  was  asserted  so  stren 
uously  by  the  Slave  States  alone,  however ;  and 
only  the  Slave  States  seceded  ;  while  the  States 
that  triumphed  in  the  struggle  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  Union  formulated  their  success  in 


THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE.  21 

additions  to  the  organic  law  of  the  Union  that 
were  designed  alone  to  settle  the  Negro  Question 
in  accordance  with  the  views  of  that  question 
which  the  North  had  upheld  throughout  the  con 
troversy  that  preceded  the  war.  The  Union  is 
restored,  and  the  States  have  resumed  the  rela 
tions  which  they  formerly  sustained  towards  each 
other.  The  amended  Constitution  contains  no 
word  in  reference  to  State  Sovereignty  that  it  did 
not  contain  prior  to  1861.  The  old  controversy 
has  been  renewed  on  changed  lines,  and  relates 
wholly  to  the  one  question  of  the  status  of  the 
Negro.  If  we  have  regard  to  the  substance  of 
our  former  differences,  then,  and  not  to  the  ex 
pression  of  them,  we  see  that  the  Negro  question 
was  the  issue  that  divided  us. 

Nay,  the  South  itself  was  divided,  on  the  same 
question,  when  the  final  conflict  was  precipitated. 
A  considerable  portion  of  the  people  of  the  South 
sided  with  the  North  in  the  struggle  that  fol 
lowed  secession,  and  either  held  aloof  from  the 
Confederate  armies,  or  took  active  part  against 
them.  This  class — Union  men  or  Union  sym 
pathizers,  as  they  were  called — were  the  inhabi 
tants  of  the  mountain  region  which  extended 
from  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  far  down  into  the 
heart  of  the  Confederacy.  And  the  distinguish 
ing  feature  of  this  central  or  wedge-shaped  re 
gion,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  South, 
was  and  is  the  almost  entire  absence  of  a  Negro 
population.  The  apparent  exception  to  the  rule 


22  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOtf. 

that  has  been  noted,  but  confirms  the  rule  when 
closely  examined. 

The  line  of  separation  of  the  people  followed 
the  actual  boundary  of  the  Slave  territory  in  all 
its  course. 

Certainly,  more  than  one  motive  or  principle 
influenced  the  people  of  America  in  their  conflict. 
But  we  need  not  consider  what  other  motives 
there  were.  It  is  idle  to  deny,  it  is  the  blindest 
self-deception  not  to  see,  that  Slavery  was  the 
real  occasion,  and  the  unfortunate  Negro  the  real 
cause,  of  all  our  strife.  Slavery  has  disappeared. 
The  Negro  remains.  His  changed  status  fur 
nishes  us  with  new  occasion  for  renewed  conten 
tion.  We  are  still  divided.  The  Negro  keeps  us 
apart.  His  presence  is  enough,  whatever  his 
condition,  to  maintain  the  difference  and  conse 
quent  division  that  his  presence  caused  in  the 
first  instance.  He  has  stood  between  us,  as 
slave,  as  freedman,  as  citizen, — and  he  stands  be 
tween  us  still  in  his  present  anomalous  and  most 
undesirable  character,  for  which  it  is  difficult  to 
find  a  name. 

No  matter  whose  the  fault,  is  not  the/<z^  evi 
dent  that,  in  whatsoever  guise  and  howsoever  re 
garded,  the  Negro  himself  has  been  and  is  and 
promises  to  remain  the  one  insuperable  barrier  to 
the  perfect  Union  which  our  forefathers  sought 
to  form,  and  which  the  people  of  America,  of  the 
South  and  the  North  alike,  still  desire  above  all 
things  to  see  consummated  ? 


THE  DIVISIONAL  LINE.  23 

If  not,  so  much  the  worse  for  us.  For  if  the 
Negro  was  not  the  cause  of  our  difference  and 
division,  then  is  that  cause  radical  indeed.  The 
old  Union  was  a  lie  and  no  Union.  The  new 
Union  is  the  old  Union  restored,  with  a  line  of 
graves  to  remind  us  forever  of  the  existence  of 
two  antagonistic  sections,  and  to  form  a  lowly 
but  always  impassable  wall  between  them. 

No,  it  is  better  for  us  that  the  Negro  is  surely 
the  cause  of  our  estrangement,  and  that  the  cause 
does  not  consist  in  a  deep-rooted  antipathy,  as 
irreconcilable  as  inexplicable,  between  the  people 
of  the  two  groups  of  States.  We  might  solve 
the  Negro  problem  in  time,  though  it  were  in 
volved  in  tenfold  the  difficulties  it  now  presents. 
Woe  betide  us  and  our  children  if  our  old  hatreds 
were  innate,  and  so  strong  on  both  sides,  or  on 
either  side,  that  they  could  find  adequate  expres 
sion  only  in  four  years  of  bloody  warfare ;  and  if 
they  are  but  concealed  now  under  the  old  cloak 
of  false  friendship,  or  even  the  new  cloak  of  a  false 
hope,  and  can  never  be  wholly  displaced  from 
our  secret  hearts! 

Every  day  the  truth  confronts  us,  and  de 
mands  recognition  and  consideration  and  action. 
Strange  that  we  should  have  ignored  it  or  evaded 
it  so  long.  It  had  been  far  better  for  us — the 
people  of  the  North  and  of  the  South  alike — if 
we  had  recognized  it  and  accepted  it  and  acted 
on  it,  long  ago.  We  shall  be  wise  when  we  deal 
with  it,  and  with  each  other,  openly,  frankly  and 


24  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

honestly.  We  shall  but  multiply  our  difficulties 
and  our  differences,  we  may  be  assured,  and  shall 
remain  apart,  while  professing  to  stand  together, 
so  long  as  we  refuse  to  see  what  is  between  us; 
to  declare  what  we  see  and  know ;  and  to  under 
take  the  work  that  knowledge  and  experience 
teach  us  must  be  undertaken,  if  we  are  ever  to 
make  the  Union  a  union  in  more  than  name. 


III. 

THE  CONTINUING  CAUSE. 

THE  purpose  being  to  present  the  facts  of  our 
condition  as  plainly  as  practicable,  and  to  deal 
with  them  honestly,  we  cannot  make  too  sure  of 
our  ground,  nor  pass  over  any  reasonable  critic 
ism  that  can  be  anticipated. 

If  we  could  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that 
it  will  be  conceded  that  the  Negro  has  been,  and 
is,  the  cause  of  all  our  contention  and  strife,  the 
rest  of  our  task  would  be  quickly  disposed  of. 
The  cause  of  trouble  being  granted,  it  would  re 
main  only  to  consider  how  it  could  be  remedied 
or  removed.  But  we  cannot  assume  so  much,  or 
so  little. 

Some  there  are,  doubtless,  and  not  a  few  hon 
est  men  among  them,  who  will  be  ready  enough 
to  concede  that  the  Negro  was  such  a  cause  be 
fore  the  war  and  during  the  Reconstruction  peri 
od,  but  will  deny  that  he  is  a  cause  of  difference 
now,  or  that  there  is,  indeed,  any  longer  a  serious 
cause  of  difference  between  the  sections.  It  is 
not  infrequently  asserted  that  there  is,  at  last,  no 
North,  no  South,  and  "  no  longer  a  negro  ques 
tion  ";  or,  at  any  rate,  that  there  would  be  none 
if  the  politicians  of  the  North  would  let  the  South 

25 


26  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

alone,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the  South  would 
let  the  Negro  alone : — all  of  which  assertions  and 
qualifications  balance  each  other  quite  satisfac 
torily,  for  our  purpose,  and  certainly  render  it  un 
necessary  to  go  into  an  extended  argument  to 
show  that  the  Negro  is  well  up  to  the  front 
among  the  issues  of  our  day.  The  South  has  not 
yet  wholly  dematerialized  as  a  political  entity, 
and  the  negro  question  remains  quite  prominent 
enough  there  to  make  us  reasonably  sure  that  the 
South  will  not  let  the  Negro  alone,  or  the  politi 
cians  let  the  South  alone,  in  our  time,  if  ever. 
The  plea  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  did 
not  suffice  to  keep  down  the  negro  question 
before  the  South  seceded,  and  when  the  Negro 
himself  was  silent  perforce.  The  cry  of  a  re 
stored  Union  will  not  suffice  to  keep  that  ques 
tion  in  the  background,  now  that  secession  has 
failed  of  its  purpose,  and  the  voice  of  the  Negro 
himself  is  raised  in  appeal  for  the  enjoyment  of 
the  rights  to  which  he  is  entitled  by  virtue  of  his 
changed  condition  from  slave  to  citizen,  and  of 
our  solemn  engagement  with  him. 

Nay,  we  cannot  so  easily  forget  him.  Let 
those  good  people,  North  and  South,  who  flatter 
themselves  that  the  negro  question  has  been  for 
ever  displaced,  or  even  so  much  as  temporarily 
obscured,  by  another  issue — the  issue  of  a  Pro 
tective  Tariff  which,  as  they  say,  divides  the 
country  on  new  and  shifting  and  non-sectional 
lines — but  consider  for  a  moment. 


THE  CONTINUING  CAUSE.  27 

The  old,  familiar  line  runs  sharp  and  clear 
through  the  whole  discussion  of  this  tariff  ques 
tion.  It  was  recently  drawn  without  break  or  de 
viation  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  and  whatever  dis 
position  to  transgress  it  appeared  among  the  rep 
resentatives  of  the  North,  the  representatives  of 
the  South  showed  their  usual  unbroken,  unwaver 
ing  front.  It  is  the  statement  of  a  fact  only.  The 
presence  of  its  vast  negro  population  affects,  de 
termines  and  unifies  every  interest  in  the  South, 
material  and  industrial  as  well  as  political ;  and 
those  interests,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  record  of 
the  balloting  in  Congress,  and  by  the  discussion 
in  and  out  of  Congress  on  the  tariff  question,  are 
not  held,  by  either  side,  to  be  identical  with  the 
interests  of  the  North.  The  influence  of  the  Ne 
gro  in  determining  the  attitude  of  the  Southern 
States  towards  the  "  Protective  system,"  more 
over,  is  not  a  discovery  of  to-day.  It  is  as  mani 
fest  to  the  thoughtful  reader  in  the  reports  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Convention  of  1787  as  in  the 
reports  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress  of 
1887-88,  and  1888-89.  Tne  conflict  between  the 
two  sections  on  this  issue  is  at  least  as  old  as  the 
Union  itself.  The  Protective  system  and  the 
Slave  system  were  the  complements  of  each  other 
from  the  beginning  of  our  history  as  a  nation. 
Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  the  Nation  owes  its 
existence  to  a  compromise  between  the  bene 
ficiaries  of  the  two  systems — and  came  near  ow 
ing  its  destruction  to  that  compromise  as  well? 


28  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  seen  that  the  for 
mer  Slave  States  are  solidly  arrayed  against  the 
surviving  system,  and  that  the  negro  question  is 
still  uppermost  among  our  troubles,  even  when 
we  would  fain  believe  it  to  be  buried  beyond 
resurrection.  And  if  it  be  so  prominent  an  ele 
ment  in  such  an  issue  as  that  of  the  Tariff,  we  do 
not  need,  surely,  to  trace  its  presence  and  activity 
in  other  issues.  The  temptation  is  not  slight  to 
take  up  this  quest,  indeed,  if  only  because  of  the 
ease  with  which  it  can  be  followed,  but  it  is  be 
lieved  that  it  is  enough  to  have  suggested  the  line 
of  investigation,  without  pursuing  it  in  any  field. 
The  broad  proposition  already  laid  down  covers 
the  whole  ground.  It  could  not  but  be  that  the 
presence  of  so  marked,  peculiar  and  considerable 
an  element  of  population  as  that  of  the  negro 
population  in  the  Southern  States,  and  its  ab 
sence  almost  from  the  Northern  States,  would 
effect  a  notable  diversity  of  character,  occupation 
and  interest,  as  between  the  peoples  of  the  two 
sections.  We  know  that  such  diversity  was 
early  established  and  has  been  maintained  hith 
erto. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  assume  or  assert  in  the 
absence  of  evidence  to  the  contrary  that,  the 
cause  remaining  the  same,  its  effects  must  and 
will  continue  to  be  manifested. 

We  need  not  quarrel  over  our  past  quarrels, 
whether  remote  or  recent.  Some  of  them,  it  ap 
pears,  will  never  be  settled.  Our  present  troubles 


THE  CONTINUING  CAUSE.  29 

are  quite  large  enough  and  important  enough  to 
engage  the  attention  and  the  most  earnest  efforts 
of  patriotic  men  in  every  part  of  the  country. 
The  negro  question  is  scarcely  concealed  beneath 
the  surface  of  the  tariff  question,  as  has  been 
shown  in  the  discussion  of  the  tariff  question, 
and  that  is  enough  of  itself  to  answer  the  claim 
that  there  is  no  longer  a  negro  question  to  vex 
us.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  settlement  of  the 
tariff  question,  one  way  or  the  other,  or  the  set 
tlement  of  any  or  all  of  the  incidental  and  minor 
questions  with  which  we  have  to  do,  would  not 
dispose  of  the  great  issue  that  is  beneath  and 
behind  them  all,  and  of  which — in  so  far  as  the 
North  and  the  South  differ — they  are  but  so 
many  phases. 

There  is  one  view  of  our  condition  that  will 
solve  every  honest  doubt  as  to  what  it  really  is 
and  what  we  have  to  expect  in  the  future. 

Whatever  degree  of  harmony  and  unity  be 
tween  the  two  sections  now  obtains,  has  been 
secured,  within  the  past  dozen  years,  by  the  prac 
tical  concession  to  the  white  people  of  the  South 
of  nearly  everything  that  they  have  claimed  rela 
tive  to  the  status  of  the  Negro  ;  even  his  politi 
cal  status,  which  was  the  last  point  in  dispute. 

Perplexed  and  baffled  in  their  efforts  to  make 
the  Negro  a  citizen,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  term, 
the  people  who  freed  him  and  conferred  suffrage 
on  him  have  virtually  retired  from  the  contest  in 
his  behalf.  The  existing  harmonious  condition 


30  AN  APPEAL    TO  PHARAOH. 

of  affairs  between  the  North  and  the  South  is 
maintained  at  his  expense.  Let  the  Negro  alone, 
let  the  South  alone,  and  there  will  be  no  more  a  ne 
gro  question  until,  like  the  slavery  question,  after 
festering  and  rankling  awhile  below  the  surface 
of  events,  it  shall  break  forth  suddenly  to  plague 
the  whole  country  anew  and  compel  us  to  con 
sider  it  again.  Let  the  Negro  alone  ;  leave  the 
South  to  deal  with  him  ;  and  the  Union  will  be 
as  sincere  and  cordial  as  at  any  time  since  it  was 
formed.  Let  him  not  alone;  assert  effectively 
the  principle  of  his  equality  as  a  citizen,  which 
the  South  rejects  in  practice,  and  the  fires  of  sec 
tionalism  will  burn  as  fiercely  on  the  instant  as 
they  burnt  at  any  time  between  1865  and  1876. 
Do  we  not  know  this  to  be  true  ?  Are  we  not 
acting  on  the  knowledge  ?  Our  present  peace 
and  unity  are  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Negro's  civil  and  political  rights,  and  by  the  sac 
rifice  of  every  principle  and  sentiment,  right  or 
wrong,  that  is  embodied  inthe^ta?/  bellum  amend 
ments  of  the  Constitution.  It  is  an  evil  condi 
tion  of  things,  but  we  have  accepted  it  as  a  lesser 
evil  than  the  condition  which  it  has  supplanted. 
It  cannot  last,  however.  The  end  will  come 
sooner  or  later.  Soon,  if  the  North  shall  pres 
ently  insist  again  on  its  former  view  of  the  Ne 
gro's  rights,  or  on  any  modified  or  alternative 
view  ;  later,  but  none  the  less  surely,  if  it  do  not. 
The  certain  source  and  cause  of  trouble,  sectional 
or  otherwise,  is  the  Negro  himself.  The  question 


THE  CONTINUING  CAUSE.  31 

concerning  him  is  becoming  more  complex,  and 
is  assuming  new  and  more  difficult  phases  while 
we  try  to  ignore  it.  We  shall  have  inevitably  to 
meet  it  again,  before  very  long,  in  some  form, 
and  in  a  more  troublesome  form  than  ever  before. 
The  present  condition  of  the  Negro  challenges 
our  thought  every  day,  and  compels  our  concern, 
whether  we  will  or  no.  He  is  not  satisfied,  and 
we  are  not  satisfied  about  him.  He  remains 
where  he  was,  and  for  the  most  part  what  he  was. 
We  cannot  let  him  alone,  if  we  would.  We 
have  treated  with  him  in  the  three  characters — 
under  the  three  disguises,  it  may  be  said — of 
slave,  freedman,  and  pseudo-citizen,  which  we 
have  imposed  on  him.  We  have  yet  to  treat 
with  him  in  his  own  personality,  in  his  essential 
character  of  a  stranger,  an  alien,  a  hopelessly  un- 
assimilable  intruder  in  our  national  household. 

The  truth  is  that  the  War  and  the  results  of  the 
War — emancipation,  enfranchisement,  and  the 
rest — but  brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  real 
underlying  question  over  which  we  pondered  and 
blundered  and  quarrelled  so  long.  Perhaps  we 
could  not  have  seen  it  and  attempted  its  solution 
while  it  was  obscured  by  slavery.  We  should 
have  seen  it  right  speedily  when  slavery  was 
abolished,  had  we  not  hastened  to  cast  the  cloak  of 
"  manhood  suffrage  "  over  it.  We  have  no  longer 
an  excuse  for  our  failure  to  see  what  we  should 
have  seen  long  ago  had  we  not  been  blinded  by  our 
selfish  interests,  first  pecuniary  and  then  political. 


32  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

It  is  the  old  question  still — the  Negro  Ques 
tion — but  we  are  just  beginning  to  understand  it 
and  to  consider  it  in  its  ultimate  and  inevitable 
form.  The  suffrage  experiment  delayed  this  un 
derstanding,  indeed,  for  a  time  ;  but  it  has  made 
the  true  issue  the  plainer  and  more  imperative,  now 
that  it  is  forcing  itself  upon  us.  Its  ultimate  form 
is  its  primary  form.  We  have  nearly  or  quite  des 
cribed  the  great  circle  of  error — three  hundred 
years  around — and  are  now  where  our  forefathers 
would  have  speedily  found  themselves  if  they  had 
allowed  negro  immigration  in  the  first  place,  and 
thereafter,  on  a  considerable  scale,  without  en 
slaving  the  immigrants  as  fast  as  they  landed ! 
The  coarse  garb  of  the  slave  concealed  the  Negro 
himself,  the  Man  of  diverse  race,  character,  history 
and  capability,  from  the  selfish  and  short-sighted 
gaze  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic,  and  of  their 
sons,  our  fathers.  We  stripped  him  of  his  rags, 
and  clothed  him  with  the  robe  of  citizenship. 
Some  of  us  have  since  stripped  him  of  that  robe — 
after  his  brief  masquerade  in  it.  We  are  face  to 
face  with  the  African  at  last. 


IV. 

A  RACE-QUESTION. 

WHAT  then  is  the  Negro  Question? 

The  answer  is  in  the  very  terms  of  the  inquiry. 
It  is  a  race-question,  on  its  face. 

True,  it  has  still  a  sectional  feature,  and  a  polit 
ical  feature,  and  social  and  religious  and  other 
features ;  but  they  are  mere  features.  The  per 
sonality  of  the  Negro  is  behind  them  every  one. 
It  is  a  sectional  question,  because  the  negro  is 
practically  confined  to  one  section.  It  is  a  politi 
cal  question  because  it  is  a  sectional  question. 
Its  remaining  features  have  been  merged  in  these 
two,  or  overshadowed  by  them,  and  need  not  now 
be  considered.  It  would  never  have  presented 
either  of  these  its  principal  features,  perhaps,  if 
the  negro  population  had  been  evenly,  or  more 
evenly,  distributed  throughout  the  country.  In 
the  section  where  that  population  is  concentrated, 
and  where  it  promises  to  remain  concentrated,  it 
is  purely  a  race-question,  and  is  recognized  as 
such.  It  is,  therefore,  a  race-question  for  the 
whole  country. 

Is  not  the  truth  as  large  and  plain  as  the  "  Solid 
South"  itself?  Why  should  any  one  have  to 
labor  or  argue  to  make  it  plainer  ?  What  room 

33 


34  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

is  there  for  honest  doubt  as  to  the  real  issue  ?  A 
race-conflict  has  been  waged  in  the  Southern 
States  every  day  and  hour  since  the  slave  was 
freed, — since,  that  is  to  say,  the  former  subordi 
nate  race  was  put  in  a  position  to  assert  itself  in 
some  measure.  The  conflict  is  still  in  progress, 
wherever  two  representatives  of  the  two  races 
stand  together.  There  is  not  one  faint  token 
that  it  will  ever  end.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
or  hoped  for  by  others,  neither  party  to  it  ex 
pects  it  to  end.  The  third  party,  the  people  who 
precipitated  the  sullen,  ceaseless  warfare,  and  who 
looked  for  its  peaceful  termination  long  ago  in  a 
condition  of  things  in  accordance  with  their  ideas 
and  plans,  have  no  direct  part  in  it,  and  can  take 
no  part  that  will  not  aggravate  its  worst  phases, 
as  they  have  learned.  Certainly,  they  have  no 
power  or  skill  to  shape  the  result  to  conform  to 
their  wishes.  Every  man,  woman,  and  child  in 
the  South,  and  of  both  races,  is  engaged  in  it  al 
ways.  It  is  the  most  extended  and  inveterate 
race-conflict  that  the  world  has  ever  known,  and 
is  indeed  unparalleled  of  its  kind  ;  there  is  abso 
lutely  no  precedent  for  it  in  history:  but  we 
need  be  at  no  loss  to  understand  its  character. 

It  is  such  a  conflict  as  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  would  be  waged  if  the  same  number  of 
negroes,  or  a  much  smaller  number,  were  now 
introduced  into  any  part  of  America  for  the  first 
time,  except  that  its  conduct  is  modified  in  many 
wsys  by  Uie  former  and  long-continued  relations 


A  RACE-QUESTION.  35 

of  the  two  parties  to  it.  It  is  such  a  conflict  as 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  would  have  taken 
place  long  ago  if  the  Negro  had  been  introduced 
into  any  part  of  America  on  the  same  footing 
with  other  immigrants,  and  in  any  considerable 
numbers.  It  has  been  said  that  the  institution 
of  slavery  served  to  postpone  the  conflict  so  long, 
by  merging  the  Negro  in  the  slave,  and  the 
thoughtful  reader  will  be  at  no  loss  to  understand 
and  accept  the  assertion,  and  to  follow  out  the 
reflections  it  suggests.  It  is  such  a  conflict  as 
the  extreme  Western  States  were  threatened 
with,  and  experienced,  in  a  measure,  a  few  years 
ago,  in  consequence  of  the  sudden  irruption  of 
Mongolians  into  their  territory;  the  nature  of 
which  conflict  no  one,  anywhere,  was  at  a  loss  to 
understand  when  the  lines  were  first  drawn,  or 
later,  when  governmental  aid  was  invoked,  and 
granted,  for  the  exclusion  of  the  alien  race.  It 
is  just  such  a  conflict,  to  carry  the  comparison  a 
little  farther,  as  these  Western  States  would  have 
been  subjected  to,  if  the  Chinese  had  been  intro 
duced  as  slaves;  had  become  established  by 
reason  of  residence  and  numbers  ;  and,  after  over 
running  a  vast  area  of  country,  had  been  emanci 
pated  and  made  citizens  under  the  circumstances 
which  marked  the  emancipation  and  enfranchise 
ment  of  the  negroes  in  the  Southern  States.*  It 
is  such  a  conflict,  in  fine,  as  our  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  as  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the 
*  See  note,  p.  126.  Remarks  of  Senator  Stewart. 


36  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHA&AOH. 

world  and  the  map  of  the  world,  should  have 
taught  us  to  expect  as  the  result  of  trying  to  fuse 
two  unlike  races  of  men  into  one  body  politic  be 
fore  the  millennium  had  fairly  dawned,  and  under 
conditions  that  were  not  particularly  favorable 
for  the  experiment.  Let  us  consider  for  a  mo 
ment  what  the  conditions  were. 

If  it  had  been  asked,  prior  to  1865,  under  what 
circumstances  it  would  probably  be  practicable 
to  induce  two  unlike  races  of  mankind  to  live 
together  on  the  same  soil,  on  equal  terms  gen 
erally,  and  under  a  common  government,  of 
course,  the  answer  of  any  intelligent  man  would 
have  been  somewhat  as  follows : 

The  two  races  should  be  as  nearly  alike  as 
practicable,  in  all  respects,  to  begin  with.  They 
should  be  as  nearly  equal  as  practicable  in  re 
spect  of  numbers,  strength,  knowledge,  culture, 
wealth,  etc.,  etc.,  to  ensure  the  maintenance  of 
equality  in  all  their  joint  relations.  They  should 
entertain  sentiments  of  peculiarly  friendly  regard 
for  each  other,  and  of  confidence  in  each  other. 
There  should  never  have  been  any  serious  or 
long-standing  cause  of  enmity  or  distrust  between 
them,  that  would  be  likely  to  be  revived  or  re 
called  under  any  circumstances.  Both  races 
should  heartily  desire  the  fusion  to  be  effected, 
and  should  enter  into  the  experiment  voluntarily, 
and  earnestly  disposed  to  make  it  successful — not 
to  say  with  eagerness  and  enthusiasm.  And,  not 
to  lay  down  too  many  requirements,  it  would 


A  RACE-QUESTIOtf.  37 

probably  have  been  added  that,  when  the  novel 
and  hazardous  experiment  should  be  fairly  in 
progress,  its  conduct  should  be  left  indubitably 
to  those  most  concerned  in  its  success,  without 
interference  from  any  outside  source  that  would 
be  likely  to  develop  latent  antagonism,  or  intro 
duce  any  element  of  discord,  or  dislike  or  distrust, 
where  perfect  harmony  of  feeling  and  purpose 
was  so  plainly  essential  to  be  preserved  and 
fostered. 

How  have  these  simple  and  obvious  prerequi 
sites  to  the  success  of  such  an  experiment  been 
observed  in  the  instance  before  us? 

The  reader,  may  answer  this  question  in  detail 
for  himself.  The  general  answer  is  that  every 
condition  of  success  that  has  been  suggested,  or 
that  can  be  suggested,  perhaps,  has  been  carefully 
violated  or  disregarded  in  the  conduct  of  the 
great  American  experiment  on  this  line  during 
the  last  quarter  century.  Starting  out  with  the 
two  races,  the  Caucasian  and  the  African,  which 
differ  most  widely  from  each  other  in  every  re 
spect  in  which  two  races  can  differ — as  the  sub 
jects  of  the  venture,  we  have  spared  no  pains  to 
complicate  it  and  render  it  more  difficult  and  more 
hopeless  at  every  step,  and  have  indeed  the  full 
satisfaction,  at  the  last,  of  knowing  that  we  have 
left  no  blunder  untried,  nor  missed  any  impor 
tant  error  that  ignorance  could  suggest  or 
ingenuity  invent,  to  insure  its  failure. 

We  have  only  to  reflect,  besides,  that  this  par- 


38  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

ticularly  unpromising  undertaking  was  not  only 
not  entered  upon  voluntarily  by  at  least  one  of 
the  peoples  directly  concerned  in  it — and  that  by 
far  the  more  numerous  and  more  powerful  of  the 
two,  and  upon  whom,  therefore,  the  success  of 
the  scheme  was  mainly  or  wholly  dependent — 
but  was  forced  upon  them  by  their  conquerors  in 
a  protracted  and  bloody  war,  as  a  penalty  of  the 
war,  and  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  establishing 
their  political  subjugation  to  the  allied  forces  of 
their  recent  enemies  and  recent  slaves: — we  have 
only  to  reflect  on  these  things,  surely,  to  dis 
charge  our  minds  of  any  lingering  element  of 
surprise  that  the  first  great  experiment  of  racial 
fusion  has  not  wholly  met  the  expectations  of  its 
promoters,  and  to  remove  the  last  lingering  ele 
ment  of  uncertainty  as  to  the  final  result. 

Nor  is  there  room  for  surprise  that  the  strug 
gle  has  involved  loss  of  life,  to  whatever  extent 
and  under  whatever  pretext.  The  only  matter 
for  wonder  is  that  the  land  has  not  been  drenched 
with  blood;  and  blood  would  have  flowed  in 
rivers  instead  of  rills,  we  may  be  sure,  but  for  the 
general  inequality  of  the  two  parties  to  the  con 
test,  and,  especially,  the  radical  weakness  of  the 
Negro,  which  has  impelled  him  to  yield  place  and 
power  everywhere,  and  always,  with  a  readiness 
that  has  preserved  his  race  from  destruction,  in 
deed,  but  at  the  same  time  has  demonstrated  his 
peculiar  unfitness  to  be  made  the  subject  of  the 
experiment  that  was  forced  upon  him  also, — 


A  RACE-QUESTION.  39 

willing  or  unwilling.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  con 
template,  even  in  imagination,  what  would  have 
been  the  probable  condition  of  affairs  in  the 
South  during  the  Reconstruction  period,  had  the 
negroes  there  largely  outnumbered  the  whites ; 
or  if  they  had  possessed  more  of  the  aggressive 
spirit  of  their  white  neighbors.  It  is  bad  enough 
as  it  is;  but  perhaps  it  is  better  as  it  is,  after 
all — for  the  black  people  and  the  white  people  of 
the  South,  and  for  the  whole  people  of  America, 
both  now  and  hereafter — that  the  gentle  and 
patient  Ethiopian  changes  his  natural  character 
no  more  readily  than  his  natural  skin  under  the 
operation  of  statute  laws. 

We  may  abandon  the  speculative  point  of 
view,  however,  without  ceremony.  There  is  no 
need  to  conjure  up  imaginary  troubles.  Our 
actual  present  and  probable,  or  certain, future  ills 
are  quite  enough  to  engage  our  whole  attention. 
The  question  before  us  is,  at  last,  a  question  as 
to  the  plain  facts  of  the  condition  and  position  of 
the  Negro  among  his  white  neighbors,  of  their 
relations  and  disposition  toward  each  other,  and 
their  probable  conduct  hereafter.  The  experi 
ment  of  which  the  Negro  has  been  the  principal 
subject,  and  the  object  of  which — to  express  the 
purpose  in  conveniently  comprehensive  terms — 
was  to  make  him  the  "  equal "  of  other  men  in 
habiting  the  same  soil  with  him,  has  been  in  force 
for  more  than  a  score  of  years.  What  is  the  net 
result?  What  has  been  accomplished  for  the 


40  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

Negro,  in  that  period?  Let  us  determine  if  we 
can,  and  set  down  as  truly  as  we  can  within  so 
narrow  limits,  the  bare  facts  of  his  case  as  they 
are  presented  to  us  to-day. 


V. 

THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION. 

Is  it  not  a  bare,  hard  fact,  then,  that  the  Negro 
in  America  has  made  very  little  progress,  since 
his  emancipation,  towards  the  shining  goal  set 
for  him  by  his  liberators — the  goal  of  American 
citizenship,  in  the  true  and  full  sense  of  the  term  ; 
the  sense  in  which  it  is  applied  to  the  white  man? 

The  desire  and  endeavor  of  his  friends  was  to 
absorb  him  into  the  body  politic  ;  to  assimilate 
him  wholly;  to  cancel  and  obliterate  every  dis 
tinction  and  difference  that  was  in  his  way,  ex 
cept  those  imposed  on  him  by  nature, — and  to 
ignore  these. 

It  was  hoped  and  expected  that  he  would  de 
velop  to  our  standard  so  surely  and  so  rapidly 
under  this  generous  treatment,  that  our  preju 
dices,  born  and  nurtured  of  former  relations  only, 
perhaps,  would  disappear,  and  that  he  would  be 
come  as  one  of  us  ;  and  so  vindicate  the  heroic 
measures  adopted  in  his  behalf.  The  struggle  of 
the  Reconstruction  period  was  to  clear  his  way 
to  higher  ground,  and  but  for  the  hope  and  ex 
pectation  that  he  could  reach  it  and  would  reach 
it,  almost  at  a  bound,  the  efforts  of  the  Republi 
can  party,  of  his  friends  everywhere,  to  push  him 

41 


42  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

forward  would  have  been  as  criminal  as  they  have 
been  vain.  And  vain  they  have  been  when  meas 
ured  by  the  purposes  here  indicated. 

Progress  the  Negro  has  made,  unquestionably, 
in  some  directions ;  in  some  places ;  perhaps,  even 
when  we  have  regard  to  his  whole  race  in  the 
United  States.  He  is  no  longer  a  slave,  and  his 
emancipation  has  uplifted  him  in  heart  and  mind 
to  some  degree  above  the  low  plane  of  his  former 
estate.  Freedom  has  brought  its  responsibilities 
and  cares  and  pains,  but  these  he  accepts  with 
out  a  murmur,  in  consideration  of  the  blessed 
privilege  of  directing  his  own  ways  and  calling 
no  man  "  Master."  He  has  justified  his  deliver 
ance  even  in  the  eyes  of  his  former  owner,  by 
showing  that  he  appreciates  his  liberty  and  loves 
it  with  all  his  soul.  There  has  been  no  sighing 
on  his  part  for  the  flesh-pots  of  slavery  even 
when  he  starved  in  sight  of  them.  The  husks 
that  have  been  his  portion  but  too  often  since  he 
began,  unaided,  to  provide  for  his  own  wants,  are 
sweeter  to  the  humblest,  most  ignorant  of  his  race 
than  all  the  dainties  that  ever  fell  to  his  lot  from 
the  kindest  master's  table.  Ask  him,  and  he  will 
tell  you  that  he  is  not  infrequently  in  sore  straits, 
and  knows  not  in  the  morning  where  his  dinner, 
or  eke  his  breakfast,  will  come  from,  if  it  shall 
come  at  all.  But  he  feels  that  he  is  free—"  free 
till  he  is  fool,"  is  his  own  expressive  language — 
and  he  would  not  exchange  places  with  his  for 
mer  self  for  any  price  that  could  be  offered  him. 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      43 

And  he  is  free, —  in  so  far  as  his  intelligence  en 
ables  him  to  assert  his  liberty.  Free  to  come  and 
go  ;  to  work  or  play  ;  to  live  or  die  ;  as  he  pleases, 
or  as  may  befall  him. 

And  more  is  conceded  to  him  than  is  expressed 
by  sheer  indifference  to  his  existence  and  conduct 
and  end.  He  exercises  many  rights  and  privi 
leges,  before  denied  to  him  and  ardently  desired 
by  him.  We  need  not  try  to  mention  all  of 
these — the  list,  happily,  is  too  long  for  detailed 
mention.  A  few  examples  must  suffice.  The 
courts,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  are  open 
to  him  and  he  "  laws  "  therein  to  his  heart's  con 
tent.  He  is  admitted  to  the  jury-box  in  some 
places ;  and  to  the  prisoner's  dock  in  all  places — 
save  when  he  commits  one  crime.  Whether  jus 
tice  holds  the  scales  equally  balanced  between 
him  and  the  white  man,  cannot  be  said  here. 
The  question  is  difficult  of  determination,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  a  question  of  fact.  The  opinions  of 
whites  and  blacks  differ  on  the  subject.  Work  is 
furnished  him,  in  many  industries.  Some  of  his 
race  have  accumulated  a  little  property,  some 
even  much,  and  in  this  respect  are  better  off  than 
many  white  laborers  of  their  class,  both  North 
and  South.  He  has  the  right  to  bear  arms,  and 
exercises  it  unchallenged,  save  in  extremely  rare 
instances.  He  parades  at  pleasure  with  his  fel 
lows,  and  holds  when  he  will  the  political,  social, 
religious  and  other  assemblies  which  he  so  much 
affects  :  the  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  exceptions> 


44  ANAPPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

and  are  not  numerous.  Hischildren  go  to  school, 
and  to  college  sometimes,  mainly  at  the  white 
man's  expense.  He  can  obtain  any  degree  of  the 
higher  education  that  he  is  capable  of  and  can 
pay  for,  and  having  acquired  a  profession  he  is  at 
liberty  to  practice  it  freely  among  his  own  people. 
At  times,  his  vote  is  courted,  and  counted.  In 
many  ways  which  need  not  be  mentioned  more 
particularly,  he  enjoys  equal  rights  and  privileges 
with  his  white  neighbors,  and  such  enjoyment  has 
exalted  him  somewhat  in  his  own  eyes  and  given 
him  a  better  opinion  of  himself.  He  has  indu 
bitably  made  progress  upward  in  certain  direc 
tions,  as  compared  with  his  position  as  a  slave. 
The  advance  is  unmistakable,  though  we  can  not 
set  the  tide-mark  of  the  unequal  wave,  nor  say 
how  much  is  due  to  his  own  efforts. 

After  giving  full  credit  to  him,  and  to  the  peo 
ple  among  whom  he  lives,  for  these  evidences  in 
his  favor  and  theirs — and  for  any  other  evidences 
that  may  be  adduced — much  requires  to  be  said 
on  the  other  side. 

In  some  respects  his  condition  has  scarcely 
improved  upon  that  of  slavery  ;  in  others  it  is 
worse.  The  great  majority  of  his  race  work  for 
a  bare  and  poor  living.  The  wages  of  the  average 
laborer  scarcely  serve  to  provide  food  and  cloth 
ing,  of  the  plainest  quality,  for  himself  and  family. 
The  women,  as  a  rule,  work  as  hard  as  the  men  in 
both  town  and  country.  Few  negro  families  are 
as  well  fed,  or  well  clothed,  or  as  well  off  in  point 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      45 

of  general  comfort  as  they  were  when  slaves. 
The  head  of  the  family,  in  this  generation,  is 
usually  ignorant,  and  his  ignorance,  improvidence 
and  dependence  together  render  him  the  easy 
victim  of  designing  and  unscrupulous  white  men  ; 
he  is  defrauded  and  imposed  on  at  every  turn. 
The  rule  of  confirmed  and  hopeless  poverty  in  the 
Negro's  case  is  painfully  familiar  to  those  who 
have  looked  closely  into  the  every-day  life  of  the 
masses  of  his  people.  The  assertion  will  be 
challenged,  doubtless,  and  exceptions  pointed  out 
as  usual  ;  but  regard  is  had  here  to  the  rule  only, 
and  it  cannot  be  lightly  set  aside. 

The  following  excerpts  will  indicate  what  that 
rule  is : 

To  what  extent  the  Negro  has  advanced  as  a  property 
holder  is  a  matter  which  has  been  lately  discussed,  and 
which  has  brought  out  a  number  of  contradictory  statements. 
The  Comptroller-General  of  Georgia  reports  the  taxable 
property  owned  by  negroes  in  that  State  as  owned  by  white 
citizens. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier 
points  out  that  in  Charleston  the  negroes  stand  just  where 
they  did  in  1860;  that  the  value  of  the  property  held  by 
them  to-day  is  just  about  the  same  as  that  held  by  the  free 
negroes  twenty-eight  years  ago,  and  strange  to  say,  the 
colored  property-holders  are  of  the  same  class  as  in  1860,  the 
descendants  of  negroes  free  before  the  war.  This  is  a  piece 
of  conservatism  very  infrequent  in  this  country  even  among 
the  whites,  where  fortunes  shift  in  a  generation. 

We  cannot  but  think  that  the  Georgia  return  is  nearer  the 
average  of  the  South  ;  although  what  the  News  and  Courier 
says  of  Charleston  is  largely  true  of  this  city  also.  We 


46  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

doubt  whether  the  value  of  property  held  by  colored  men  in 
New  Orleans  is  any  greater  to-day  than  that  held  by  the 
freed  men  of  color  in  1860  ;  and  yet  both  in  New  Orleans  and 
throughout  Louisiana  the  negro  has  been  improving  his 
condition  steadily.  It  takes  more  than  one  generation,  how 
ever,  to  raise  a  race  held  in  the  bond  of  slavery  to  the  condi 
tion  of  property-holders.  When  the  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  that  have  been  paid  the  negro  in  wages,  and  the  mil 
lions  wasted  by  them  in  the  veriest  trash,  are  considered,  it 
seems  strange  that  so  few  dollars  of  it  have  been  invested  in 
land,  houses  or  any  permanent  property. 

The  freed  men  of  color  who  inherited  land  or  houses  have 
held  on  to  them  or  at  least  to  a  portion  of  them.  The 
negroes  engaged  in  any  very  profitable  trade  or  business 
may  have  laid  aside  something  and  own  some  little  property, 
but  the  great  majority  of  the  race,  who  are  simply  farm 
hands,  laborers  or  domestic  servants,  have  acquired  no  per 
manent  property  of  any  kind, 

During  the  days  of  Republican  supremacy,  when  the  gov 
ernment  was  held  by  them  or  their  pretended  friends,  they 
made  no  advance  whatever,  if  they  did  not  actually  go  back 
ward.  Latterly,  as  the  Georgia  statistics  show,  they  have 
been  improving  their  condition  financially.  In  the  Yazoo 
delta  of  Mississippi  in  particular  they  have  become  property- 
holders  in  great  numbers  and  have  done  well.  There  has 
certainly  been  a  considerable  increase  in  the  amount  of 
property  owned  by  the  Southern  negroes  in  the  past  ten 
years,  but  it  is  still  very  small,  certainly  not  over  3  or  5  per 
cent,  of  the  total,  and  not  anything  like  those  wild  and  ex 
aggerated  figures  which  went  the  rounds  of  the  press  lately, 
until  contradicted  and  exposed  by  The  Times-Democrat, 
and  which  placed  the  value  of  farm-property  held  by  negroes 
in  this  State  at  one-fifth  of  the  total. — From  the  Times- 
Democrat  (New  Orleans),  May,  1888. 


The  recent  action  of  the  Legislature  of  Georgia  has  at- 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION,      47 

tracted  much  attention.  The  Legislature  passed  a  bill 
which  provided  that  all  the  revenue  collected  from  taxes  on 
property  owned  by  white  people  in  Macon  should  go  to  the 
.white  schools  there,  and  that  taxes  derived  from  the  colored 
people  be  applied  to  the  colored  schools.  On  this  basis,  the 
negroes  of  Georgia  in  general,  it  is  stated,  would  be  entitled 
to  $12,000  or  $15,000  a  year  for  the  education  of  200,000 
children.  Governor  Gordon  vetoed  the  bill,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  against  sound  policy  and  a  violation  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  State  and  of  the  United  States. — 
From  the  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  S.  C.,  January 
12,  1889. 

The  unanswerable  evidence  of  the  general  bad 
physical  condition  of  the  race  is  given  in  the  re 
sults  of  that  condition.  Taking  the  United 
States  as  a  whole,  the  annual  mortality  among  the 
"  black  and  colored  "  population  is  about  25  per 
cent,  greater  than  among  the  white  population. 
In  the  cities  and  towns,  despite  the  charitable- 
medical  attendance  nearly  everywhere  provided, 
the  difference  is  something  frightful.  If  the 
death-rate  among  the  white  population  in  any  of 
our  cities  were  to  range  for  a  short  period  with 
the  constant  rate  among  the  negroes,  a  general 
alarm  would  be  speedily  sounded.  A  fatal  epi 
demic  among  the  whites  would  be  required  to 
equalize  the  mortality  returns  of  the  two  races 
for  weeks  together,  in  some  cities. 

In  many  cities  where  the  whites  outnumber  the  blacks 
two  to  one,  the  death  rate  among  the  latter  exceeds  that 
among  the  former.  The  death  rate  in  this  city  [Charleston, 
S.  C.]  in  1884  was,  for  the  white  population  i  in  42,  and  for 


48  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

the  colored  population  I  in  22.  In  1883  the  figures  were, 
for  whites  and  blacks  respectively,  I  in  46  and  I  in  21.  This 
showing  is  rendered  the  more  striking  by  the  fact  that  the 
poorer  classes  of  the  colored  people  in  Charleston  are  sup 
plied  with  medicines  and  medical  attention  at  the  expense  of 
the  city.  Last  year  17,950  colored  patients  were  treated  in 
the  city  hospital  and  in  the  different  health  districts,  against 
about  one-third  that  number  of  white  patients.  Close  ob 
servers  in  the  rural  districts  all  over  the  South  say  that  the 
relative  rates  there  do  not  materially  differ  from  what  is  ob 
served  in  the  cities,  although  it  is  well  established  that  ne 
groes  thrive  better  away  from  the  towns. —  The  News  and 
Courier,  Charleston,  S.  CM  June  i,  1885. 


In  Charleston,  in  the  year  1886  the  death  rate  per  thousand 
among  the  white  people  was  20.65,  while  the  death  rate  per 
thousand  among  the  colored  people  was  49.01,  or  nearly  two 
and  a  half  times  as  great. —  The  News  and  Courier,  Dec. 
30,  1887. 

The  ninth  annual  report  of  the  Atlanta  Board  of  Health 
has  just  been  issued  in  neat  pamphlet-form.  For  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  city  the  board  presents  an  abso 
lutely  accurate  report  of  deaths.  To  this  fact  is  due  the  ap 
parent  increase  in  the  death  rate  and  other  notable  deviations 
from  past  records. 

The  total  number  of  deaths  from  disease  during  the  year 
was  1315.  The  total  annual  death  rate  was  20.87  per  thou 
sand,  estimating  the  population  of  the  city  at  63,000 — white 
41,000,  colored  22,000. 

Of  the  total  number  of  deaths,  there  were  608  white  and 
707  colored.  The  annual  rate  of  mortality,  per  thousand, 
among  the  whites  was  14.82,  among  the  colored  population 
32.13.  The  number  of  deaths  among  persons  over  five  years 
of  age  reached  719 — white  344,  colored  375.  The  deaths 
among  children  under  five  years  of  age  were  596— white  264, 
colored  332.  Of  this  number  318  were  under  one  year  olcj — 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.     49 

white    139,  colored    181. —  The  Constitution,  Atlanta,  Ga., 
Feb.  21,  1888. 

The  New  Orleans  Board  of  Health  present  some  interest 
ing  matters.  The  population  of  the  city,  according  to  the 
census  of  1880,  was:  Whites,  158,367;  negroes,  57,723 ; 
total,  216,090.  The  death-rate  of  negroes  has  always  aver 
aged  from  one-third  more  to  twice  as  great  a  mortality  per 
1000.  For  the  week  ending  March  9,  1889,  when  the  popu 
lation  of  the  city  is  estimated  at :  Whites,  184,500  ;  colored, 
69,500,  the  death-rates  are  given  per  1000  persons  at : 
Whites,  14.13;  colored,  30.03,  or  more  than  twice  as  great 
a  mortality  for  the  negroes  as  for  the  whites.  It  thus  ap 
pears  that  in  this  city  the  negroes  are  dying  off  twice  as  fast 
as  the  whites  per  thousand  of  population,  and  the  mortuary 
statistics  of  all  the  principal  Southern  cities  show  generally  a 
like  result.  Nothing  can  be  predicated  of  the  negroes  in  the 
country  in  the  absence  of  statistics,  but  the  same  cause  of 
neglect  of  hygienic  laws,  lack  of  comforts  in  their  habita 
tions,  and  general  unrestrained  indulgence  of  all  animal  ap 
petites  and  in  vicious  practices,  contribute  largely  to  increase 
mortality  among  the  colored  people.  Nothing  but  detailed 
statistics  acquired  by  the  United  States  Census  Bureau  in 
the  course  of  a  number  of  successive  decades  will  give  any 
reliable  information  upon  which  to  base  laws  of  comparative 
race-growth. — New  Orleans  Picayune,  March,  1889. 

In  Charleston  in  1887  the  number  of  [white]  children  under 
i  year  of  age  who  died  was  86.  In  1888  the  number  was  79. 
In  the  same  years  the  number  of  deaths  of  colored  children 
was  306  and  349.  In  1887  the  number  of  deaths  of  white 
children  over  i  year,  under  5  years,  of  age  was  66  and  in  1884 
the  number  was  54.  The  deaths  of  colored  children  of  the 
same  age  footed  up  for  the  same  years  196  and  237.  The 
same  ratio  holds  good  for  any  given  number  of  years.  The 
number  of  deaths  up  to  5  years  of  age  in  Charleston  in  1887 
was,  therefore,  white,  152,  colored,  502;  total  654. —  The 
News  and  Courier,  July  17,  1889. 


5° 


APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 


The  Morning  News,  Savannah,  Ga.,  March  9,  1889,  says: 
The  mortality  for  February  for  the  last  twenty-one  years 
is  as  follows  : 


YEAR. 

Whites. 

Colored. 

\ 

£L 

YEAR. 

Whites. 

Colored. 

g 

£L 

1868 

^8 

7,6 

64 

1870 

27 

*6 

60 

1869  . 

22 

2C 

4.7 

1880 

22 

4.2 

64 

1870  

•24 

CO 

81 

1881  .  .   .  . 

24. 

CI 

7C 

1871 

•22 

or 

6? 

1882 

•22 

cc 

87 

1872 

2C 

16 

71 

1883 

73 

60 

Q? 

1873  . 

4.0 

07 

14.2 

1884. 

31 

c8 

80 

1874  . 

4O 

46 

86 

188;  . 

23 

56 

7Q 

1875  
1876 

31 
27 

46 

07 

77 
64 

1886  
1887 

26 

7  8 

53 

C  I 

79 
80 

1877  . 

21 

c6 

77 

1888 

22 

6 

68 

1878  

7O 

4.  -3 

7-2 

1880  . 

10 

4.1 

60 

The  difference  in  mortality  between  whites  and 
blacks  is  now  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
same  difference  however  tells  the  story  of  the 
Negro's  struggle  for  existence.  The  odds  are 
fearfully  against  him  in  the  cities  and  towns,  as 
he  knows ;  yet  the  movement  of  his  race  is 
steadily  from  the  country  to  these  centres.  There 
must  be  a  powerful  motive  to  impel  them  to  leave 
the  country, — at  least,  the  hope  of  bettering  their 
condition  in  some  respect. 

A  very  large  subject  is  opened  by  these  consid 
erations,  but  it  cannot  be  discussed  here.  The  sta 
tistics  are  of  public  record  and  can  be  studied  and 
applied  by  any  one  who  chooses  to  consult  them. 
Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  show  that  the 
general  physical  conditions  of  the  mass  of  the  ex- 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      $1 

slaves  have  not  been  improved  since  their  eman 
cipation,  and  this  is  the  point  immediately  in 
question. 

A  single  suggestion  may  be  added.  The 
writer  has  not  the  data  at  hand  to  enable  him  to 
say  how  the  general  mortality  among  the  negroes 
since  186^  compares  with  the  mortality  before 
that  year.  It  would  be  interesting  to  determine 
the  excess,  if  any,  in  the  later  period,  if  only  to 
discover  whether  his  freedom  has  not  cost  the 
black  man,  so  far,  as  great  a  loss  of  life  as  it  cost 
the  white  man  to  set  him  free.  Perhaps  it  has 
not  ;  but  if  it  has,  we  may  well  ask  ourselves  very 
seriously  whether  we  discharged  our  whole  duty 
in  giving  him  his  liberty  and  a  ballot,  and  noth 
ing  else. 

The  conditions  of  the  political  and  social  life 
of  the  Negro  are  scarcely  more  favorable  than 
those  we  have  considered.  The  public  places  of 
honor  and  trust  and  profit,  which  are  open  to  the 
aspirations  of  every  white  man,  are  closed  to  the 
black  man  as  by  iron  doors.  He  holds  scarcely 
more  public  offices  in  all  the  United  States  than 
he  is  entitled,  under  the  law,  to  hold  in  one  or 
two  minor  districts;  and  he  occupies  no  single 
position  of  a  high  grade  anywhere  in  the  country. 
He  has  not  one  representative  of  his  own  color  in 
Congress,  and  few  in  the  principal  departments  of 
the  general  Government.  He  has  an  overwhelm 
ing  voting  majority  in  many  districts  and  counties 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  a  respectable  and 


$2  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

powerful  minority  in  those  of  several  Northern 
States  ;  yet  his  representatives  in  the  legislatures 
and  local  governments  in  all  these  States  number 
together  perhaps  less  than  a  score.  There  are 
over  a  million  voters  of  his  race  in  America. 
Evidently,  citizenship  does  not  mean  to  him  what 
it  means  to  the  white  man,  and  the  manifest  and 
wide  difference  in  meaning  is  not  in  his  favor. 
Assertion  and  comment  on  the  subject  may  be 
allowed  safely  to  rest  here.  The  familiar  explana 
tions  or  denials  of  the  facts  are  simply  tributes 
to  the  lingering  innocence  in  human  nature. 

Outside  of  political  offices,  the  Negro  is  not 
more  favored.  His  race  contributed  250,000  sol 
diers  to  the  armies  of  the  Union  in  the  late  war. 
No  genuine  negro  holds  a  commission  in  the 
military  or  naval  service;  but  one  colored  man, 
nearly  white,  has  reached  and  held  the  grade  of 
lieutenant  since  the  war  ;  one  colored  man  has 
just  been  graduated  at  the  military  academy,  but 
there  are  no  other  colored  cadets  either  there  or 
at  the  naval  academy.  The  colored  troops  in  the 
forces  of  the  United  states  and  of  the  several 
States  are  separate  and  distinct  organizations. 

The  rule  is  the  same  in  private  life.  In  the 
learned  professions,  in  the  marts  of  trade,  in  the 
direction  of  corporate  enterprises  and  important 
industrial  agencies,  in  the  higher  industrial  and 
mechanical  occupations,  even  in  the  factories  and 
workshops  where  some  small  degree  of  skill  and 
intelligence  is  required  of  the  operatives,  he  has 
no  standing  or  place  whatever  among  white  men. 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      S3 

As  professor,  teacher,  merchant,  lawyer,  physician, 
journalist,  etc.,  he  receives,  indeed,  the  counte 
nance  and  custom  of  his  own  race,  and  he  looks 
for  no  other.  Porter,  butcher,  drayman,  black 
smith,  fireman,  hod-carrier,  mason,  carpenter, 
coachman,  butler,  barber,  cook,  or  waiter,  he  may 
be  at  pleasure  and  find  service  and  favor  any 
where  ;  but  it  is  ever  the  service  of  the  inferior  to 
the  superior  that  is  exacted  from  him  as  the  con 
dition  of  favor,  or  even  toleration,  and  he  cannot 
rise  above  the  exaction  though  he  were  the  most 
capable  and  skilled  member  of  the  community  in 
which  he  lives.  Exceptions  there  are,  doubtless  ; 
but  they  require  to  be  hunted  for,  and  most  sig 
nificant  stress  is  laid  on  them  when  found ;  and 
they  usually  admit  of  exceptional  explanations. 
The  rule  is  well  nigh  absolute.  The  Negro  is  ad 
mitted  to  hotels  and  various  other  public  resorts, 
but  his  place  is  on  his  feet  while  there,  or  is  fixed 
apart.  He  may  never  sit  at  the  table,  public  or 
private,  around  which  he  waits  so  assiduously. 
He  is  admitted  into  street  cars  upon  a  more  equal 
and  pleasant  footing  than  he  enjoys  in  any  other 
place  or  institution  whatever, — and  usually  sits 
by  himself  in  that  small,  perambulating  temple 
of  liberty.  His  position  in  most  railway-coaches 
is  always  subject  to  a  conflict  between  the  con 
ductor  and  the  Constitution,  and  separate  quar 
ters  are  provided  for  him  in  most  trains.  If  he 
attend  the  white  man's  church,  which  he  rarely 
does,  he  is  assigned  to  a  corner  as  near  heaven  as 


54  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

practicable.  He  has  no  seat  in  the  congregation, 
and  perhaps  none  at  the  communion-table.  He 
is  excluded  from  the  councils  of  the  laity,  with 
out  ceremony.  He  is  sexton  and  organ-blower 
and  bell-ringer.  His  position  in  the  household  of 
faith  is  the  same  as  in  the  household  of  fashion, — 
that  of  a  doorkeeper  and  servitor.  In  the  theater 
and  the  circus,  the  camp-meeting  and  the  court 
room,  the  hospital  and  the  prison,  the  cemetery 
and  the  potter's  field,  his  place  is  his  only ;  and  is 
readily  located.  Wherever  he  goes  or  stays,  works 
or  worships,  plays  or  suffers,  lives  or  dies,  the 
lines  are  drawn  sharply  around  and  about  him, 
and  there  is  no  transgressing  them, — from  his  side. 
If  he  were  a  leper — if  his  skin  were  livid  or 
festering,  instead  of  black  only — he  could  scarcely 
be  more  shunned,  in  effect,  and  shut  out  from 
association  of  every  kind  with  his  fellow  men  of  a 
Only  in  so  far  as  the  taint  of 


*  It  is  interesting  to  note  here  one  observation  which  is  perti 
nent  to  the  subject,  and  was  made  by  an  unbiased  wri'er,  evi 
dently.  A  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald,  who  visited 
the  iron  manufacturing  district  in  Alabama  in  1887,  published  the 
following  incident,  which  is  of  interest  because  it  was  thought 
worthy  of  publication  :  "  In  a  mill  in  Birmingham  the  writer  ob 
served  that  black  and  white  workmen  drank  ice-water  from  a  com 
mon  dipper.  Even  a  year  or  two  ago,  the  black  who  would  walk 
up  and  put  his  lips  to  the  cup  used  by  his  white  associates  would 
have  been  knocked  down,  but  now  the  incident  passes  without 
notice." 

It  is  added,  a  few  lines  further  on,  that  many  of  the  white  work 
men  went  to  Birmingham  from  the  mills  in  Pennsylvania  and 
Ohio,  and  possibly,  therefore,  the  incident  does  not  prove  the  de- 


THE  NEGRO  'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      55 

slavery  clings  to  him  are  the  old  and  intimate  re 
lations  of  the  slavery  period  recognized  and  main 
tained  ;  for  the  sake  of  the  service  he  still  ren 
ders  ;  there  being  none  other  to  fill  his  lowly 
place  and  part.  There  is  no  lack  of  examples  to 
illustrate  and  confirm  every  assertion  that  has 
been  made  on  this  subject,  but  a  volume  would 
be  required  to  present  them, — and  they  are  not 
needed.  Who  is  there  in  America  that  does  not 
know  the  truth  for  himself?  The  fact  of  the 
utter  separation  of  the  two  races  is  what  is  as 
serted,  and  it  could  not  be  more  complete  or 
more  obvious.  It  is  manifested  in  every  place 
and  in  every  way  in  which  it  can  be  manifested. 


Nay !  but  something  has  been  overlooked,  it 
will  be  said.  The  progress  of  the  Negro  in  cer 
tain  important  respects  has  just  been  conceded. 
He  is  developing,  even  if  but  slowly,  on  lines 
marked  out  by  the  progress  of  the  white  man. 
This  will  bring  them  nearer  together,  after 
awhile, — in  the  end.  The  river  that  separates 
them  narrows  towards  its  source,  and  the  Negro 
is  marching  up-stream  ;  he  will  cross  it  yet,  and 

cadence  of  race-prejudice  among  the  white  people  of  the  section 
where  it  occurred.  If  the  white  workmen  were  natives,  however, 
we  should  still  not  give  ourselves  up  to  undue  elation  over  the 
progress  of  liberal  ideas.  After  all  these  years  of  preaching  the 
doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  the  white  and  black  man,  it  is  not 
much  to  have  accomplished  that  the  black  laborer  can  drink  out  of 
the  same  dipper  used  by  the  white  laborers,  in  one  iron  mill,  with 
out  being  rebuked  with  a  club. 


5^  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

meet  the  white  man  on  an  equal  footing,  some 
day,  in  the  near  or  distant  future. 

A  hopeful  view,  truly,  and  some  there  are  who 
honestly  entertain  it  ;  but  what  warrant  is  there 
for  such  hope?  The  river  is  indeed  an  arm  of  a 
great  sea,  and  is  widening  daily.  The  negro  is 
progressing,  in  those  respects  in  which  he  is 
progressing,  on  lines  that  lead  him  away  from, 
not  towards,  the  white  man.  The  effort  to  fit 
him  for  common  citizenship  and  common  fellow 
ship  has  been  in  operation  for  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  The  statement  of  his  condition  and 
position,  which  has  been  made  in  this  chapter,  is 
the  statement  of  the  results  of  that  effort,  as  they 
appear  to  us  to-day. 

It  is  a  record  of  divergence.  The  Negro  is 
farther  from  association  with  his  former  master 
than  when  he  was  a  slave.  Save  when  he  enters 
the  home  or  the  public  resort  of  the  white  man 
as  a  servant,  he  enters  it  never.  Their  children 
no  longer  play  together  as  they  played  in  the 
slavery  period.  The  rising  generation  of  whites 
and  blacks  in  the  South  are  very  much  farther 
apart  than  any  generation  that  has  preceded  them. 
There  is  no  tie  whatsoever  between  them  ;  they 
are  as  much  strangers  to  each  other  as  though 
they  lived  in  different  lands.  Their  schoolhouses 
are  as  far  removed  from  each  other  as  they  can 
conveniently  be  placed.  Nowhere  are  they 
taught  under  the  same  roof.  The  rule  of  separa 
tion  is  absolute.  White  teachers  have  been  em- 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      57 

ployed  for  the  most  part  in  the  colored  schools 
heretofore,  but  the  tendency  is  to  displace  them 
by  colored  teachers,  so  far  as  practicable.  If  not, 
the  relation  between  teacher  and  pupil  is  not  an 
exceptionally  close  one,  and  the  white  teacher  is 
preferred  by  colored  parents,  where  he  is  pre 
ferred,  mainly  because  of  his  racial  authority  and 
habit  of  control.  But  leaving  the  teacher  out  of 
the  question,  the  white  and  black  children  are 
kept  jealously  apart  throughout  their  early  years. 
The  lesson  of  racial  distinctions  and  prejudices 
is  the  first  and  plainest  lesson  they  are  taught  in 
the  very  schools  which  are  to  fit  them  for  future 
citizenship.  There  could  be  but  one  consequence 
of  such  a  system  of  "  education  "  if  applied  to  any 
marked  classes  in  any  community  and  that  con 
sequence  is  fully  exhibited  in  the  South.  The 
strongest  antagonisms  are  manifested  already  be 
tween  the  younger  members  of  the  races,  now 
entering  manhood  and  womanhood.  The  "  old 
family  servants"  are  almost  the  only  remaining 
bond  between  them,  and  when  these  shall  have 
vacated  the  stage  of  life,  together  with  their  old 
master  and  mistress,  that  last  bond  also  will  have 
been  broken. 

The  difference  of  sentiment  between  the  older 
people  of  the  two  races,  on  the  one  hand,  and  be 
tween  the  younger  people  on  the  other,  is  too 
well  known  to  require  more  than  this  slight  men 
tion.  The  obvious  fact  is  that  the  races  have 
moved  far  apart  in  the  course  of  one  generation, 


58  AN  A PPEA L   TO  PHA RA  OH. 

and  that  the  gap  widens  yearly.  The  Southern 
white  man  never  contemplates  the  possibility  of 
closer  relations.  The  Negro  entertains  little  or 
no  hope  of  closer  relations.  There  is  peace  be 
tween  them  so  long  as  the  Negro  "  knows  his 
place  "  and  keeps  his  place,  and  no  longer.  The 
slightest  assertion  of  equality  provokes  a  conflict, 
in  some  form,  and  the  Negro  is  never  the  victor. 
He  has  made  some  costly  mistakes,  but  has 
learned  a  lesson  from  them.  He  seldom  asserts 
himself  very  positively  now ;  and  when  he  does 
assert  himself  the  lesson  is  usually  taught  anew, 
promptly  and  impressively.  He  knows  his  place 
at  last,  very  nearly,  and  is  keeping  to  it  very 
closely,  being  hedged  around  by  a  thousand  in 
visible  thorns  and  spears  which  materialize  the 
instant  he  approaches  forbidden  ground,  and 
prick  him  or  pierce  him  according  as  he  presses 
against  them.  The  lesson  of  the  school-room  is 
the  lesson  of  his  whole  life. 

The  writer  does  not  wish  to  be  betrayed  into 
any  exaggeration,  to  miss  any  important  qualifi 
cation,  to  state  any  fact  offensively,  or  to  mislead 
himself  or  others  by  sweeping  generalizations. 
What  is  desired  rather  is  to  present  the  plain, 
broad  facts  of  the  existing  status  of  the  Negro 
in  the  Southern  States,  and  some  of  the  plainest 
and  broadest  of  these  facts,  as  they  appear  to  be, 
have  been  presented  as  frankly  and  honestly  as 
practicable.  If  some  of  the  assertions  that  have 
been  made  have  somewhat  of  a  dogmatic  char- 


THE  NEGRO'S  CONDITION  AND  POSITION.      59 

acter,  this  may  be  pardoned,  because  it  is  impos 
sible  to  go  into  details  of  evidence  or  argument 
on  every  point  within  the  scope  of  this  book.  A 
volume  would  be  required  indeed  to  exhibit  fully 
any  one  of  several  phases  of  the  negro  question 
which  have  been  passed  over  in  a  line  or  two. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  possible  to  anticipate  every 
objection  or  denial,  or  to  guess  at  what  passages 
they  will  be  directed.  It  is  probable  that  no 
statement  of  fact  whatsoever,  on  this  general  sub 
ject,  could  be  made  without  being  called  into 
question  by  some  critic  on  one  side  or  the  other. 
There  are  not  wanting  those  who  would  still  deny 
that  Slavery  was  injurious  to  the  States  which 
tolerated  it ;  that  Emancipation  was  due  to  mili 
tary  necessity  ;  and  that  Reconstruction  was  a 
national  nightmare.  There  are  some  persons  who 
deny  constantly  and  publicly  and  strenuously  that 
there  is  the  slightest  interference  with  the  Negro's 
exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage  in  the  South,  at 
any  time  or  place.  The  best  that  one  can  do, 
under  these  circumstances,  perhaps,  is  to  tell  the 
truth  as  he  sees  it,  and  as  freely  and  fully  and 
honestly  as  he  can,  leaving  his  words  to  justify 
themselves  if  they  can  in  the  minds  of  honest, 
truth-seeking  and  truth-loving  men.  This  course 
the  writer  has  tried  to  pursue,  by  the  light  of 
conscience,  without  motive  for  misrepresentation, 
and  without  regard  for  aught  but  the  truth  and 
its  seemingly  vital  consequence.  What  he  has 
written  must  stand  for  itself, 


60  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

The  main  fact  perhaps  is  enough  after  all,  if 
we  can  accept  it  alone.  That  fact  is,  as  it  has 
been  stated,  that  the  two  races  in  the  South  are 
absolutely  separate  and  apart  in  every  relation  of 
life,  and  meet  in  friendly  intercourse,  or  in  formal 
intercourse,  only  on  the  ground  that  remains  of 
the  old  relationship  of  master  and  slave.  When 
the  Negro,  in  other  words,  cannot  or  will  not 
serve  the  white  man  in  a  capacity  or  in  a  position 
or  under  circumstances  where  equality  is  out  of 
question,  or  where  his  inferiority  is  distinctly  and 
unwaveringly  recognized,  on  both  sides,  as  a  con 
dition  of  the  service  or  association,  they  do  not 
meet  at  all  except  under  compulsion  ;  and  outside 
of  this  kind  of  association  they  certainly  have  no 
dealings  with  each  other,  nor  expectation  of  any 
dealings. 


VI. 

RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH. 

THE  "  cause  "  of  the  condition  of  things  out 
lined  in  the  preceding  chapter  need  not  be  dis 
cussed  at  very  great  length.  It  is  as  well  known 
and  as  well  understood,  perhaps,  as  it  ever  will 
be.  We  are  not  expounding  mysteries,  nor  in 
vestigating  new  discoveries.  It  is  enough  for  our 
purpose  that  the  line  of  separation  which  has 
been  so  broadly  traced  follows  the  race-line,  the 
"  color-line, "  undeviatingly  ;  that  the  Negro,  be 
cause  he  is  a  negro,  is  shut  out  absolutely,  with 
out  exception,  from  association,  on  any  ground 
of  equality,  with  the  white  man  of  the  South. 

The  motive  of  exclusion  has  its  origin  unques 
tionably  in  racial  differences ;  and  draws  its 
strength  from  some  sort  of  sentiment  of  racial 
antagonism,  as  was  asserted  and  sought  to  be 
proved.  There  is  no  other  explanation  of  it,  and 
we  need  not  seek  for  any  other. 

The  familiar  name  of  this  sentiment  is  "race- 
prejudice,"  and  we  may  retain  the  term  because 
it  is  familiar,  and  because  we  know  what  it  means, 
in  effect.  Why  such  a  sentiment  exists,  and 
what  are  the  secret  springs  of  its  operation  in 
any  case,  we  need  not  consider.  The  important 

61 


62  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

and  sufficient  fact  is  that  it  does  exist,  is  persist 
ent,  and  is  as  radical  and  strong  and  active  a  mo 
tive  of  human  conduct,  always  and  everywhere, 
as  any  motive  that  we  have  knowledge  of. 

The  law  that  governs  the  distribution,  associa 
tion,  and  conduct  of  all  other  living  creatures 
rules  the  actions  of  men  also.  Birds  and  beasts, 
fishes,  reptiles  and  insects — nay,  the  very  trees  of 
the  forest,  and  flowers  and  weeds  of  the  field — 
group  themselves  together,  "  after  their  kind," 
in  obedience  to  the  edict  that  was  pronounced  at 
their  creation.  Man  is  no  exception  to  the  uni 
versal  rule.  In  every  land  and  clime,  under  what 
ever  circumstances  and  conditions  he  is  placed, 
he  recognizes  and  obeys  the  second  law  of  his 
nature  and  seeks  his  own  "  kind,"  avoiding  every 
other,  and  warring  with  his  unlike  neighbor. 
Families,  classes,  societies,  tribes,  nations,  form 
around  some  common  centre  of  agreement,  or 
likeness,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  unites  the 
"  like,"  and  excludes  the  "  unlike  "  from  the  in 
visible  but  infrangible  circle.  Instances  of  the 
manifestation  and  power  of  the  law  are  every 
where.  We  cannot  miss  them,  if  we  would.  The 
map  of  the  world  is  a  map  of  the  larger  groups. 
The  history  of  the  world,  sacred  and  profane,  is 
but  the  history  of  the  formation  and  organiza 
tion  and  contentions  of  the  infinitely  varied 
groups,  of  every  degree  and  kind.  It  was  not  a 
bolt  from  frowning  skies,  but  a  difference  of 
speech,  that  stayed  the  hands  of  the  builders  of 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        63 

Babel,  and  dispersed  them  and  their  children  to 
the  four  corners  of  the  earth  ;  and  even  that  dif 
ference,  of  a  breath  only  though  it  be,  has  kept 
separate  from  that  day  to  this  those  who  can 
recognize  no  other  cause  of  variance.  Differences 
of  opinion  and  sentiment — to  take  no  note  of 
more  substantial  and  more  conspicuous  marks  of 
unlikeness — have  been  not  less  effective  causes 
of  division  and  rearrangement.  The  history  of 
our  own  country  is  one  unbroken  demonstration 
of  the  energy  and  persistence  of  the  law  under  con 
sideration.  Four  centuries  have  not  elapsed  since 
the  white  man  first  set  his  foot  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  new  world.  Every  step  westward 
has  been  marked  by  the  blood  of  the  race  he 
found  here  and  drove  before  him.  The  Indian 
has  been  nearly  swept  from  the  face  of  so  much 
of  the  North  American  Continent  as  is  especially 
consecrated  to  the  principle  of  the  equality  and 
brotherhood  of  mankind.  And  now  at  the  last, 
standing  on  the  grave  of  the  Red  Man,  and  shut 
ting  the  western  gate  of  the  Republic,  without 
ceremony,  in  the  face  of  the  Yellow  Man,  we  turn 
and  proclaim  anew  to  ourselves  and  to  the  world 
that  our  destiny  and  the  destiny  of  the  Black 
Man  is  one !  It  is  very  strange. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  become  a  mighty  nation, 
the  constituent  elements  of  which  have  been 
drawn  at  random  from  every  branch  of  the  widely 
scattered  Indo-Germanic  stock.  We  pride  our 
selves  that  these  branches  have  grown  again  into 


64  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

one  harmonious  whole.  Has  the  fundamental 
law  then  been  indeed  suspended  or  set  aside,  as 
between  ourselves?  Has  it  not  rather  been  even 
more  plainly  exemplified,  if  possible,  in  our  deal 
ings  with  each  other,  than  in  our  dealings  with 
that  brother  whom  we  slew  because  he  would  not 
work,  and  the  other  whom  we  expelled  because 
he  was  rather  too  industrious  on  his  own  account  ? 
The  influence  of  the  varied  "  groups  "  which  first 
dotted  the  Atlantic  shore  has  been  felt  through 
out  our  national  life.  The  differences  which 
characterized  the  Puritan  and  Cavalier  and  Hu 
guenot  immigrants  of  the  colonies  may  be  traced, 
broadly  and  deeply  marked  to-day,  along  lines 
that  divide  State  from  State  and  section  from 
section.  Are  we  all  Americans  only?  Do  we 
hold  one  faith?  Do  we  speak  one  tongue?  Or 
does  every  such  political  contest  as  that  from 
which  we  have  just  emerged  remind  us  more  and 
more  forcibly  that  there  are  yet  Saxons  and  Celts 
and  Latins,  English  and  Irish,  Germans  and 
French,  Jews  and  Gentiles,  Catholics  and  Protes 
tants,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  among  us,  all  answering  the 
appeals  to  old  racial,  national,  and  religious  dif 
ferences  and  prejudices  as  promptly  and  heartily 
as  though  the  Atlantic  Ocean  did  not  roll  be 
tween  them  and  the  graves  of  their  warring  fore 
fathers  ?  Even  while  we  try  to  ignore  these 
phases  in  our  national  life,  we  give  full  recogni 
tion  to  them  when  exhibited  by  the  peoples  who 
are  nearest  to  us.  A  hundred  years  and  more  of 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOVTH  AND  NORTH.       65 

association  under  a  common  government  have  not 
modified  the  antipathy  between  the  English- 
Canadian  and  the  French-Canadian.  „  We  are 
counting  with  eager  confidence  upon  the  power 
of  a  race-prejudice  between  neighbors  whom  we 
cannot  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other,  to 
bring  both  into  our  national  family,  and  over  half 
a  million  of  their  number  have  come  already  in 
obedience  to  it. 

We  must  discharge  our  minds  assuredly  of  the 
notion  that  "  race-prejudice,"  in  its  broadest  sense, 
is  peculiar  to  the  white  people  of  the  Southern 
States.  Wherever  there  is  a  recognizable  differ 
ence,  though  comparatively  slight,  between  any 
two  sub-families  of  the  human  'frfce  living  in  con 
tact  or  communication,  the  subtle  repelling  in 
fluence  manifests  itself  on  one  side  or  both. 
They  who  dwell  perforce  in  one  community  fall 
apart  and  move  apart,  so  far  as  they  can,  within 
the  limits  of  their  environment,  whatever  its  char 
acter  or  extent,  and  readjust  their  relations  with 
out  hesitation  or  conscious  intention.  The  process 
is  instinctive  and  inevitable.  Even  where  there 
were  sameness  and  harmony  at  first,  differences 
and  distinctions  arise  in  time,  and  but  multiply 
and  become  more  operative  as  any  community 
advances  in  civilization. 

But  if  it  be  true  that  comparatively  slight 
and  unimportant  differences — even  artificial,  and 
therefore  removable  differences — serve  always  to 
estrange  and  segregate  families  and  peoples  who 


66  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

are  generally  alike,  what  grounds  have  we  for  the 
belief,  or  hope,  that  the  Caucasian  and  African 
will  ever  form  one  permanent,  harmonious  com 
munity  of  equals — on  a  political  basis,  of  all  the 
bases  that  can  be  named — anywhere  on  the  face 
of  the  globe  ? 

The  difference  between  these  races  is  conspicu 
ous  and  inexpugnable.  It  is  as  glaring  as  nature 
can  make  it.  The  one  race  is  white  ;  the  other 
black.  They  are  not  merely  unlike  races  but  are 
contrasted  races.  They  are  the  poles  of  human 
ity.  They  have  kept  apart,  so  far  as  we  know, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world.  There  has 
been  no  association,  and  scarcely  any  communi 
cation  between  them  since  the  dawn  of  history. 
The  black  race  in  Africa  indeed  has  no  place  in  his 
tory.  It  has  remained  secluded  in  the  darkness  of 
the  Dark  Continent  while  the  march  of  civilization 
has  swept  around  its  northern  and  southern  boun 
daries  and  girdled  the  earth.  Beyond  the  limits  of 
the  small  colonies  at  the  southernmost  cape  of  the 
continent,  and  of  the  few  widely  scattered  trad 
ing  posts  that  fringe  the  east  and  west  coast,  the 
foot  of  the  white  man  has  rarely  ventured  until 
recently.  In  none  of  these  colonies,  at  none  of 
these  posts,  has  there  been  any  approach  towards 
equality  of  association,  on  any  ground,  between 
the  two  races  there  brought  together.  The 
white  man  maintains  by  force  the  foothold  his 
cupidity  alone  led  him  to  seize.  The  story  of 
his  neighbors  is  told  in  a  few  expressive  words  in 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        67 

one  of  our  educational  text-books:  "A  pure 
Hottentot  is  hardly  to  be  found.  They  have 
been  great  sufferers  in  war  with  the  Dutch  and 
English  of  South  Africa,  and  as  a  race  are  rapidly 
passing  away."  The  Bushmen,  it  is  added,  are 
"  now  nearly  exterminated."  * 

The  Mediterranean  Sea  alone  separates  Eu 
rope  from  the  vast  and  almost  unknown  territory 
which  the  black  man  inhabits.  Four  hundred 
years  ago  the  Spanish  Admiral  sailed  along  the 
African  coast  until  the  wide  ocean  opened  before 
him,  and  then,  instead  of  turning  southward  to 
the  strange  lands  awaiting  conquest  there,  set 
his  face  toward  the  unknown  and  drifted  over 
"the  edge  of  the  world."  Many  millions  of  the 
white  race  have  followed  in  the  wake  of  his  frail 
fleet  to  occupy  the  New  World  he  discovered. 
That  New  World  has  become  old,  and  when  these 
words  are  penned,  is  waiting  with  breathless 
anxiety  for  tidings  of  one  of  its  adventurous  sons 
who  has  been  lost  for  two  years  in  the  still  unex 
plored  heart  of  Africa — in  a  region  that  is  drained 
by  the  great  river  that  flows  by  the  tombs  of  the 
Pharaohs ! 

What  has  kept  this  vast  continent  alone  so 
strangely  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the  world 
throughout  all  the  ages?  One  obvious  and  suffi 
cient  reason  arises  in  every  mind,  and  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  frame  another. 


Appleton's  Physical  Geography. 


68  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH, 

But  if  there  be  a  lingering  doubt  that  a  posi 
tive  sentiment  of  racial  antipathy  impels  the 
white  man  everywhere — and  always,  when  his  own 
interest  is  not  concerned — to  avoid  association 
with  the  Negro,  and  to  avoid  even  the  territory 
occupied  by  him,  it  is  removed  by  consideration 
of  the  conduct  of  both  the  European  immigrant 
and  native  American  in  the  United  States.  No 
sea  or  other  natural  barrier  divides  the  old  Free 
States  from  the  old  Slave  States.  Yet  the  in 
visible  boundary  line  between  the  two  sections 
is  seemingly  as  impassable  as  the  Mediterranean  ; 
as  forbidding  as  the  wide  waste  of  Sahara.  What 
are  the  facts  ? 

We  may  leave  our  South  American  neighbors 
out  of  consideration.  There  is  nothing  peculiar, 
it  is  believed,  in  their  experience  or  behavior. 
Nor  need  we  review  here  any  part  of  the  especial 
behavior  of  the  people  of  the  former  Slave  States 
of  North  America  in  this  respect.  Ample  illus 
tration  of  the  power  of  the  prejudice  in  question 
still  remains  to  us. 

The  first  broad  fact  that  confronts  us  is  that 
the  millions  of  immigrants  from  every  part  of  Eu 
rope,  who  have  come  to  the  United  States  since 
the  Negro  became  a  prominent  element  in  our 
population,  have  consistently  and  persistently 
avoided  the  territory  which  the  Negro  occupies. 
We  need  not  enlarge  at  all  on  this  familiar  and 
glaring  feature  in  the  settlement  and  develop 
ment  of  the  Republic.  It  is  strikingly  and  ex- 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTti  AND  NORTH.       69 

haustively  presented  by  Judge  Albion  W.  Tour- 
ge"e  in  An  Appeal  to  Ccesar,  and  we  may  con 
tent  ourselves  with  quoting  some  of  the  most 
pertinent  statements  set  forth  in  that  interesting 
work,  upon  the  authority  of  the  Tenth  United 
States  Census.  In  the  chapter  entitled  "A  Ma 
cedonian  Cry,"  it  is  shown  that  in  the  sixteen 
Southern  States  named — Alabama,  Arkansas, 
Delaware,  Florida,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  Louisiana, 
Maryland,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Virginia  and 
West  Virginia — there  were,  in  1880:  12,460,247 
whites  ;  6,039,657  colored  ;  642,988  foreign  born. 
In  the  Northern  States,  at  the  same  time,  there 
were:  30,942,733  whites;  540,736  colored  ;  6,047,- 
155  foreign  born.  The  proportion  of  foreign 
born  in  all  the  former  Slave  States  was  three  and 
five-tenths  per  cent ;  in  the  Northern  States  about 
twenty  per  cent.  The  next  statement  is  more 
striking.  The  total  population  of  the  eight 
States  of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Caro 
lina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and 
Louisiana,  in  1880,  was  9,053,613.  Of  this  num 
ber  only  1 19,686,  or  one  and  one-third  per  cent, 
were  of  foreign  birth. 

Other  statistics  of  like  character  might  be 
added,  but  all  are  to  the  same  effect.  What  they 
prove  is  summarized  in  the  language  of  the 
Census  report  itself  on  the  subject  of  the  distri 
bution  of  population,  as  follows: 

Comparing  the  tables  which  exhibit  the  number  of  per- 


70  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

sons  resident  in  each  State  and  Territory  who  are  of  foreign 
birth,  with  the  tables  which  exhibit  the  number  of  colored 
persons  residing  in  each  State  and  Territory,  we  note  that 
the  two  elements  of  the  population  are  in  a  high  degree 
mutually  exclusive.  There  is  a  group  of  five  States,  forming 
an  irregular  belt  extending  from  the  Atlantic  westward,  in 
which  the  two  elements,  each  in  appreciable  degree,  are  found 
together.  These  are  Delaware,  Maryland,  West  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri.  The  District  of  Columbia  also 
falls  into  this  group.  Far  to  the  South  and  Southwest  are 
found  Florida,  Louisiana,  and  Texas,  having  also  the  two 
elements  in  an  appreciable  degree,  although  the  colored  are 
vastly  in  excess.  To  the  north  and  northwest  are  found  New 
Jersey  and  Kansas,  having  also  the  two  elements  in  an  ap 
preciable  degree,  though  here  the  foreign  born  are  largely  in 
excess.  In  all  the  remaining  States  it  may  be  said  emphati 
cally,  with  but  slight  qualification,  that  where  the  colored  are 
found,  the  foreign  born  are  not ;  and  vice  versa.  (Tenth 
Census,  vol.  i.,  pp.  464,  465.) 

This  conspicuous  avoidance  of  a  large  and  well 
defined  part  of  the  Union  has  not  been  confined 
to  our  foreign  population.  Whatever  motive  or 
sentiment  has  diverted  the  movement  of  so  many 
millions  of  strangers  around  the  border  of  the 
territory  occupied  by  the  Negro,  has  influenced 
the  restless,  ever-shifting  element  of  the  native 
population  of  the  Northern  States  no  less.  There 
is  abundant  evidence  of  this  without  going  into 
details,  in  the  figures  collated  by  Judge  Tourge"e 
in  the  book  and  chapter  already  mentioned ;  from 
which  it  is  learned  that  the  total  number  of  per 
sons  of  Northern  birth  residing  in  all  the  sixteen 
former  slave  States  in  1880  was  876,445,  or  but 


RA  CE-PREJUDICE,  SO  UTH  AND  NOR  TH.        7 1 

four  and  seven-tenths  per  cent,  of  the  entire  popu 
lation.  Much  more  than  half  of  these,  it  should 
be  added,  resided  in  Missouri,  and  only  53,267 
were  to  be  found  in  the  particular  belt  of  eight 
States  before  named,  extending  from  the  Potomac 
to  the  Mississippi,  where  the  negroes  are  most 
numerous. 

The  European  immigrant  and  the  native  white 
man  of  the  North  have  acted  in  full  accord,  it  is 
seen,  in  avoiding  the  States  where  the  Negro  is 
present  in  considerable  numbers.  But  this  is  not 
all  that  requires  to  be  said.  The  sentiment  that 
has  prompted  their  conduct  is  not  weakening  in 
view  of  the  Negro's  improved  position  and  condi 
tion.  He  has  been  free  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  He  stands  on  the  same  plane  of  citizen 
ship  with  the  white  native  American,  and  higher 
than  the  newly  arrived  foreigner.  He  is  more 
shunned  by  both,  however,  than  when  he  was  a 
slave  and  chattel. 

To  follow  the  statements  of  Judge  Tourg£e  on 
this  point,  we  find  that  while  there  was  a  gain  of 
284,679  in  the  aggregate  Northern-born  popula 
tion  of  all  the  Southern  States  duringthe  decade 
from  1870  to  1880  (mainly  due  to  an  increase  of 
200,000  in  Missouri  and  Texas),  the  numerical  in 
crease  barely  keeps  pace  with  the  increase  of 
population,  being  at  the  rate  of  "  five-tenths  of  one 
per  cent,  in  ten  years."  In  the  belt  of  eight 
States  before  considered  separately,  there  was  a 
loss  of  nearly  two  thousand  in  the  same  period, 


^2  AM  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOti. 

which  reduced  the  proportion  of  Northern-born 
residents  in  those  States  from  eight-tenths  of  one 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  population  to  six-tenths  of 
one  per  cent. 

In  all  the  sixteen  Southern  States  there  was  an 
aggregate  increase  of  foreign-born  population  in 
the  tivo  decades  from  1860  to  1880,  of  about  120,- 
ooo;  a  result  that  is  due  again  to  the  influx  of 
about  222,000  immigrants  into  the  two  States  of 
Missouri  and  Texas.  The  eight  Atlantic  and 
Gulf  States  lost,  in  the  same  period,  29,000  foreign- 
born  inhabitants ;  or  nearly  one-fourth  the  num 
ber  which  they  had  in  1860. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  all  this?  To  as 
sume  and  assert  that  it  is  due  to  race-prejudice 
alone,  would  be  to  beg  the  whole  question  out 
right,  and  would  certainly  satisfy  no  careful  and 
honest  seeker  after  truth. 

The  explanation  that  is  commonly  given  and 
generally  accepted,  among  us,  is  too  familiar  to 
require  to  be  recounted  here  at  length.  We  may 
anticipate  with  serene  confidence,  moreover,  that 
any  omission  on  this  score,  in  these  pages,  will 
be  speedily  supplied  from  other  sources  ;  andean 
content  ourselves  therefore  with  the  barest  sketch 
of  the  reasons  usually  offered.  The  brief  state 
ment  of  these  reasons  is,  then,  that  the  distinc 
tive  negro  territory  in  the  Union  is  avoided  by 
the  white  immigrant  and  native  American  be 
cause  they  cannot  compete  with  the  negro  laborer 
or  mechanic  upon  equal  terms ;  nor  afford  to 


RA  CE-PREJUDICE,  SO  UTH  AND  NOR  TH.        ^ 3 

work  at  all  for  the  wages  which  negro  labor  has 
established  ;  nor  live  in  the  hovels  and  under  the 
conditions  with  which  the  Negro  is  content ;  nor 
consent  to  be  degraded  to  the  low  level  which 
the  laborer  and  mechanic  occupies  in  the  South — 
a  level  which  is  fixed  and  maintained  by  the 
presence  of  the  Negro  ;  nor  buy  valuable  land, 
because  the  Southern  man  holds  it  at  too  high 
prices,  etc.,  etc. 

This  general  view  is  fully  presented  and  ably 
sustained  by  Judge  Toiirge"e  in  An  Appeal  to 
Ccesar,  in  the  chapter  entitled,  "  Accounting  for 
Strange  Things,"  and  it  is  quite  enough  to  refer 
to  the  words  of  that  writer,  without  incorporating 
them  here.  Very  much  of  what  he  says  is  be 
yond  controversy;  much  of  the  rest  contains  a 
large  element  of  verity,  and  a  vast  deal  more 
might  be  added  in  the  same  line  of  argument 
without  liability  to  being  so  much  as  challenged. 
The  trouble  with  Judge  Tourgee's  explanation, 
however,  as  with  others  of  similar  purport  directed 
to  the  same  subject,  is  that  it  has  regard  to  only 
one  of  two  correlated  phases  of  the  problem 
which  is  sought  to  be  explained  ;  and  just  to  the 
extent  that  it  explains  the  one,  it  makes  the  other 
more  problematical  than  before.  While  account 
ing  for  strange  things,  in  some  sort,  perhaps,  it 
renders  familiar  things  utterly  unaccountable; 
and  is  therefore  fairly  open  to  serious  question 
as  to  its  correctness  in  the  first  instance.  Let  us 
consider  as  briefly  as  we  can  the  first  phase  which 


74  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

has  been  overlooked,  in  its  relation  to  the  main 
question  before  us. 

The  African  in  America  has  avoided  the  terri 
tory  occupied  by  the  naturalized  immigrant  and 
the  native  white  man  of  the  Northern  States,  no 
less  carefully  than  these  have  avoided  the  terri 
tory  occupied  by  the  Negro. 

For  obvious  reasons,  we  need  not  consider  the 
movements  of  population  between  the  Northern 
and  Southern  States  during  the  census  decade 
marked  by  the  occurrence  of  the  civil  war,  or  be 
fore  that  decade.  The  comparison  therefore  must 
be  restricted  to  the  result  exhibited  in  the  Ninth 
and  Tenth  Censuses: 

The  number  of  persons  of  Northern  birth  resident 

in  the  sixteen  Southern  States  in  1880,  was  .  .  876,425 

The  number  of  foreign  born  in  the  same  States, 
was 642,988 

Total, 1,519,433 

The  number  of  colored  persons  resident  in  the 

twenty-two  Northern  States  in  1880  was       .     .      478,715 

The  number  of  persons  of  Northern  birth  resident 
in  the  sixteen  Southern  States  increased,  in  the 
decade  1870-1880 284,679 

The  number  of  foreign  born  in  the  same  States 

increased  in  the  same  period 37,ooo 

Total  increase, 321,679 

The  number  of  colored  natives  of  Southern  States 
resident  in  the  twenty-two  Northern  States  in 
creased  in  the  same  period 61,740 

The  number  of  colored  natives  of  the  Black  Belt 
resident  in  Northern  States  increased  in  the 
same  period 23,069 


RA  CE-  PREJUDICE,  SO  UTH  AND  NOR  Tff.        7 5 

There  are  other  interesting  phases  of  the  move 
ment  of  population  on  either  side  of  the  sectional 
line,  and  across  it  since  1870,  but  we  cannot  go 
further  into  this  branch  of  the  subject.  A  glance 
at  the  census  tables  for  1870  and  1880  will  show 
that  the  greater  number  of  colored  natives  of 
Southern  States  resident  in  Northern  States  in 
those  years  were  from  the  States  of  Virginia, 
West  Virginia,  Maryland  and  Kentucky.  The 
inference  is  that  most  of  them  escaped  from  those 
States  during  the  war ;  at  any  rate  but  few  of  them 
were  from  the  farther  Southern  States.  More 
over,  the  northward  migration  of  the  colored 
people  has  practically  ceased,  the  increase  amount 
ing  to  only  three-tenths  of  one  per  cent,  for  the 
decade  under  consideration.  (Appeal  to  Cczsar, 

P.  182.) 

How  shall  we  account  for  this  conduct  on  the 
part  of  the  negroes  of  the  Southern  States? 

It  goes  without  saying  that  every  reason  that 
is  so  eloquently  and  elaborately  presented  by  the 
author  of  An  Appeal  to  Ccesar,  and  every  reason 
that  is  commonly  advanced  by  other  persons,  to 
explain  why  the  native  American  and  naturalized 
European  immigrant  alike  avoid  the  Southern 
States,  should  constitute  an  equally  powerful 
reason,  at  least,  to  impel  the  naturalized  African 
to  leave  the  Southern  States  without  delay  or 
ceremony.  To  which  remark  it  is  scarcely  neces 
sary  to  add  the  further  reflection  that  there  are 
assuredly  many  reasons  to  impel  the  Negro  to 


76  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

leave  the  South  which  can  not  possibly  operate 
to  deter  the  Northern  man  and  foreign  immigrant 
from  entering  that  region.  Yet  the  Negro  has 
not  left  the  South,  and  is  not  leaving  it  in  appre 
ciable  numbers. 

The  question  recurs  again  :  Why? 

There  is  one  obvious  and  sufficient  explana 
tion  ;  and  but  one.  The  colored  man  has  learned 
by  experience  that  a  change  of  residence  works 
no  change  in  his  condition,  in  the  respect  that  he 
most  desires  to  have  it  changed.  The  same  pre 
judice  confronts  him  wherever  he  goes.  We  may 
deceive  ourselves  by  our  professions  in  regard  to 
him  ;  but  he  is  not  deceived.  There  are  many 
evidences  of  the  prevalence  and  strength  of  the 
unfriendly  sentiment  which  he  encounters  in 
every  part  of  the  North,  but  we  must  confine 
ourselves  to  a  very  few,  of  the  most  general  char 
acter. 

Leaving  out  of  consideration  altogether  the 
mass  of  evidence  to  be  obtained  from  our  ante 
bellum  history,  is  it  not  plain  enough  that  the 
colored  man  has  almost  no  part  whatever  in  even 
our  political  life,  save  as  a  voter?  How  many 
elective  offices,  and  of  what  grade,  does  he  fill  in 
all  the  Northern  States  ?  How  many  has  he  filled 
in  all  the  years  that  he  has  been  with  us?  To 
how  many  public  offices  of  consequence,  civil  or 
military,  has  he  been  appointed  ?  There  are 
400,000  colored  people  in  the  States  of  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illi- 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        77 

nois  and  Kansas.  What  representation  have  they 
of  their  own  race,  in  the  National  Congress,  the 
State  Legislatures,  the  municipal  councils,  or  in 
any  position  that  is  filled  by  the  popular  vote? 
And,  outside  of  public  office,  how  many  places 
of  honor  and  trust,  of  whatever  kind,  in  which 
the  white  people  around  them  are  concerned  or 
interested,  are  occupied  by  colored  men — in  all 
the  Northern  States  ?  What  part  have  colored 
men  and  women  in  our  social  organizations,  or 
our  social  gatherings,  of  whatever  character? 
Are  our  theaters,  and  hotels,  and  watering-places, 
and  schools  and  colleges  and  churches  indeed 
open  to  them,  without  exception  or  reserve ;  or 
are  those  which  are  open  the  exceptions  ?  Are 
they  ever  invited  to  our  homes?  Do  we  ever 
enter  their  homes,  on  a  footing  that  has  no  re 
gard  to  their  race  or  color,  to  say  nothing  of  their 
previous  or  present  condition  of  servitude  ?  Are 
there  no  evidences  of  a  prejudice  on  our  part 
against  them;  or  is  the  evidence  of  such  preju 
dice  ever  wanting,  or  obscure,  to  their  eyes? 

It  is  not  enough  to  ask  these  general  questions 
however.  They  require  to  be  answered,  if  only 
in  part;  and  though  we  have  not  had  much  occa 
sion  to  exhibit  the  strength  of  the  sentiment  in 
question,  being  mostly  engaged  in  preaching  about 
it  to  our  friends  at  a  distance,  positive  and  plain 
testimony  is  not  wanting.  The  witnesses  repre 
sent  a  large  extent  of  territory,  it  will  be  seen, 
and  their  testimony  is  alike  unbiased  and  con- 


7^  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

elusive.  Presented  in  the  most  summary  form, 
and  having  regard  only  to  comparatively  recent 
declarations,  the  testimony  is  as  follows : 

Neither  Republican  Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania  nor  Maine 
has  ever  nominated  or  elected  a  colored  citizen  to  a  repre 
sentative  or  other  honorable  or  lucrative  office. —  The 
Times,  Philadelphia,  Oct.  26,  1886. 


Speaking  of  the  color  line  in  politics,  Texas,  with  its 
Democratic  majority  of  something  less  than  200,000  votes, 
has  elected  five  colored  men  to  the  Legislature.  What  North 
ern  Republican  State  has  elected  even  one?  It  looks  as 
though  the  Northern  Republicans  were  more  than  willing 
that  the  Southern  Democrats  should  furnish  all  the  recogni 
tion  the  colored  brother  is  to  get. —  The  Times,  Philadel 
phia,  Dec.  — ,  1888. 

Kansas,  the  banner  Republican  State  in  the  universe,  has 
for  the  first  time  chosen  a  colored  man  to  the  Legislature. — 
Newport  News,  Norfolk,  Va.,  Dec.  — ,  1888. 

The  constitution  and  the  law  of  Ohio  guarantee  to  the 
colored  children  of  Oxford,  O.,  admission  to  the  public 
schools,  but  the  white  citizens  of  that  village  nullify  that 
constitution,  and  deny  the  colored  children  their  school 

rights. Seventy-five  of  the  leading  citizens  have  banded 

together  to  boycott  these  poor  negro  children — not,  mark 
you,  to  protect  themselves  against  the  vote,  the  rule  of  these 
negroes — but  to  deny  them  the  opportunity  of  education. 

And  yet  the  people  of  Oxford  would  vote  to  enforce 

negro  rule  in  Louisiana. — Judge  WM.  M.  DlCKSON,  of  Cin 
cinnati,  in  The  Commercial  Gazette,  Cinn.,  Jan.  — ,  1888. 


The  pretext  upon  which  suffrage  is  denied  the  blacks  in 
the  South  is  that  the  race  is  not  capable  of  self-government, 


RA  CE-PREJ  UDICE,  SO  U  TH  A  ND  NOR  TH.        7  9 

and  that  its  supremacy  would  result  in  the  degradation  and 
destruction  of  society  and  the  State.  I  don't  distrust  the 
sincerity  or  candor  of  the  Southern  whites.  They  probably 
believe  what  they  affirm,  but  I  have  no  doubt  they  have 
deliberately  determined  to  eliminate  the  negro  from  their 
politics,  and  upon  the  ground,  they  reason,  of  their  superior 
intelligence,  wealth  and  morality,  the  whites  must  remain 
supreme  ? 

What  is  the  feeling  at  the  North  ? 

There  is  no  malevolence  or  hatred  towards  the  South  in 
Northern  people  so  far  as  I  have  heard  or  known  on  account 
of  the  war.  If  that  sentiment  ever  existed  it  has  disappeared, 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  much  sympathy,  and  the  feeling  of 
amity  is  strong.  Many  intelligent  Northerners,  even  among 
the  Republicans,  appreciate  the  motives  which  impel  the 
suppression  of  the  colored  vote,  and  admit  that  under  similar 
circumstances  they  would  be  strongly  moved  in  the  same 
direction.  It  was  on  this  account  that  the  sectional  appeal 
lost  its  force  in  the  North,  and  the  public  ear  apparently  be 
came  dull  and  deaf  to  it. — Senator  J.  J.  INGALLS,  in  the 
Atlanta  (Ga.)  Constitution,  Dec.  3,  1888. 


The  white  people  of  Felicity,  O.,  kept  colored  children  out 
of  the  schools  by  force,  and  beat  and  maltreated  the  colored 
parents,  destroyed  their  property  in  some  cases,  and  estab 
lished  a  boycott  against  all  colored  people  to  drive  them  out. 
The  offenders  are  not  punished,  and  defy  the  law.  The 
Republican  party  leaders  are  also  leaders  in  these  outrages. 
We  find  no  reference  to  these  matters  in  the  Governor's 
message. — Cleveland  (O.)  Plaindealer,  Jan.  — , 


LOUISVILLE. — A  disturbance  which  may  cause  further 
trouble  is  reported  from  Berea  College,  a  school  founded 
near  Richmond,  Ky. ,  in  1856,  for  the  co-education  of  whites 
and  blacks.  On  January  1st  ten  white  boys  took  their  seats 
for  the  year  at  a  table,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  colored  sty- 


8o  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

dents.  One  of  the  latter  at  the  next  meal  slipped  into 
one  of  the  ten  seats.  An  angry  quarrel  ensued,  which  was 
settled  by  the  faculty  ruling  that  it  was  contrary  to  the 
principles  of  the  school  for  white  students  to  establish  an 
exclusively  white  students'  table. — Associated  Press  dispatch, 
Jan.  12,  1889. 

CHICAGO.— A  dispatch  from  Marion,  111.,  says  :  "  What 
threatens  to  be  a  very  serious  race  war  has  broken  out  in 
this  city.  A  few  weeks  ago  the  firm  of  M.  Westboard  & 
Sons,  tobacco  packers,  imported  a  number  of  colored  men  to 
work  in  their  factory,  claiming  that  there  are  no  white  men 
capable  of  performing  the  work  of  stemming  and  stripping. 
This  action  on  the  part  of  the  company  greatly  enraged  a 
number  of  white  workmen,  and  they  sent  notices  to  the  col 
ored  men  warning  them  to  leave  town  within  ten  days  or 
receive  summary  punishment.  Threats  were  also  made  to 
burn  the  factory  and  the  homes  of  the  imported  laborers." — 
Associated  Press  dispatch,  Feb.  5,  1889. 


RlPLEY,  O. — A  peculiar  state  of  affairs  is  brought  to  light 
among  the  farming  communities  in  this  county,  produced 
by  the  now  famous  "  Arnett  law.''  Formerly  the  farms  had 
numerous  colored  tenants,  but  since  the  passage  of  the 
Arnett  bill,  which  made  mixed  schools,  the  colored  tenant 
farmer  gradually  is  being  driven  out.  Whenever  his  lease 
upon  the  land  runs  out  he  is  quietly  informed  by  his  white 
landlord  that  the  latter  has  another  man  for  his  place,  and 
upon  his  applying  to  another  farmer  in  the  same  district  he 
is  certain  to  be  refused. 

In  this  manner  the  white  farmers  gradually,  without  vio 
lent  or  harsh  means,  removed  the  colored  people  from  the 
community  until  there  is  not  one  left  in  some  of  the  school 
districts,  and  the  law  which  was  intended  to  benefit,  does 
positive  injury  to  the  colored  man. — United  Press  dispatch, 
Feb.  14,  1889. 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        81 

Now  it  is  a  fact  that  there  exists,  not  merely  in  the  Southern 
States,  but  equally  in  the  Northern  States,  a  strong  preju 
dice  against  colored  men  holding  federal  offices.  We  do  not 
hear  of  any  Northern  community  of  Northern  political 
leaders  demanding  the  appointment  of  colored  men  to  office 
in  their  neighborhood — even  to  small  postoffices.  To  our 
minds  the  prejudice  is  inhuman  and  unchristian  ;  but  it  is 
even  stronger  in  the  North  than  in  the  South,  for  we  know 
of  several  instances  in  which  Democratic  Governors  of 
Southern  States  have  made  colored  men  sheriffs  without 
serious  objection  from  their  fellow  Democrats,  and  we  doubt 
if  a  colored  man  has  ever  been  either  appointed  or  selected 
to  so  important  an  office  in  any  Northern  State  or  in  any 
Northern  Republican  community. — New  York  Herald, 
April,  1889. 


Another  serious  outbreak  of  race  prejudice  is  reported  from 
Ohio.  New  Richmond,  a  town  of  3000  inhabitants  in 
Clermont  County,  has  about  700  white  school-children  to 
300  black.  After  the  repeal  of  the  "  black  laws  "  two  years 
ago,  and  the  consequent  throwing  open  of  the  public  schools 
of  the  State  to  children  of  both  races  on  equal  terms,  the 
negroes  of  New  Richmond  were  persuaded  to  have  their 
children  kept  in  separate  rooms,  and  thus  virtually  allow  the 
old  line  of  distinction  to  be  maintained.  But  one  negro, 
James  Ringold,  decided  to  insist  upon  his  rights,  and  sent 
his  children  into  a  room  occupied  by  white  children.  The 
little  negroes  were  abused  and  made  miserable  in  every  way, 
and  finally  Ringold  appealed  to  the  courts  to  protect  him 
and  them,  suing  the  Superintendent  of  Schools  and  thirteen 
prominent  citizens  for  $5000  damages.  On  Tuesday  last 
the  Circuit  Court  decided  in  his  favor,  giving  him  one  cent 
and  costs.  This  showed  the  negroes  generally  that  they 
could  legally  send  their  children  into  the  rooms  occupied  by 
white  children,  and  they  did  so  on  Friday.  Great  excitement 
resulted,  and  so  much  disgust  was  expressed  that  on  Satur- 


82  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH, 

day  the  School  Board  closed  the  schools  for  the  remaining 
three  months  of  the  school  year,  as  the  only  way  out  of  the 
difficulty.  The  situation  yesterday  is  thus  described  in  a 
dispatch  to  the  Times :  "  This  has  been  one  of  the  most 
interesting  Sundays  the  place  has  ever  known.  The  streets 
have  been  crowded  all  day.  All  other  topics  were  forgotten. 
Ministers  counselled  forbearance,  and  wise  heads  attempted 
to  calm  the  impetuous.  Each  side  professes  to  fear  violence 
from  the  other." — New  York  Evening  Post,  April  i,  1889. 


The  color  line  is  everywhere.  It  is  in  the  Northern  Pres 
byterian  Church.  It  is  in  every  Northern  church.  It  is  in 
society.  It  is  in  politics.  And  there  is  no  class  that  knows 
this  better  than  the  colored  people.  However  it  may  be  in 
politics,  we  are  sure  the  colored  people  desire  their  own 
churches.  They  may  be  Methodists,  or  Episcopalians,  or 
Baptists,  or  Presbyterians,  but  they  prefer  their  own  church 
organizations.  There  may  be  a  sentiment  in  favor  of  wiping 
out  the  color  line,  but  it  is  not  honest. — Cincinnati  Commer 
cial-Gazette,  June  — ,  1889. 

Race  prejudices  still  exist,  and  always  will  exist  to  such  a 
degree,  outside  of  politics,  that  the  advancement  of  any 
colored  man  to  a  representative  position  will  be  obnoxious 
to  a  large  proportion  of  men  of  either  party  in  this  State. — 
The  Medical  Monthly,  Peoria,  111.,  June  — ,  1889. 


The  Rev.  J.  Francis  Robinson,  a  Baptist  preacher  of  good 
character,  has  been  visiting  in  the  city  of  Auburn,  N.  Y. 
The  day  after  his  arrival  he  wished  to  get  shaved,  and  went 
to  a  barber-shop,  but  was  refused  attention.  He  went  in 
succession  to  several  other  barber-shops,  but  received  the 
same  treatment  at  each.  The  Rev.  F.  D.  Penny,  pastor  of 
the  Second  Baptist  Church  in  Auburn,  accompanied  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Robinson  to  a  number  of  shops,  and  offered  the 
proprietors  a  dollar  to  shave  his  friend,  but  his  co-operation 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        83 

was  of  no  use.  The  trouble  was  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Robinson 
has  a  black  skin,  and  as  one  of  the  barbers  said,  "  I  refused 
to  shave  him  because  it  is  against  the  rules  of  the  trade  to 
shave  a  colored  man."  Auburn  last  fall  gave  Harrison  3122 
votes  to  2214  for  Cleveland,  and  doubtless  the  Republicans 
of  Auburn  have  often  been  filled  with  indignation  at  the 
idea  that  negroes  do  not  enjoy  equal  rights  with  white  people 
in  the  South. — New  York  Evening  Post,  Aug.  3,  1889. 

The  testimony  of  prominent  colored  men  alone 
is  pointed  and  sufficient.  Some  of  their  recent 
statements  are  as  follows  : 

We  know  nothing  about  Northern  colored  people  and 
Southern  colored  people.  We  know  only  the  colored  people 
of  the  United  States,  and  we  know  that  their  condition  differs 
in  very  few  essential  points  in  either  section. — The  New 
York  Freeman,  July  9,  1887. 


Editor  T.  Thomas  Fortune,  of  the  New  York  Freeman, 
talked  to  a  Sun  reporter  yesterday  about  the  proposed  Afro- 
American  League,  whose  formation  Editor  Fortune  is  urging 
in  his  newspaper. 

"  I  first  proposed  the  idea  of  a  national  leaguing  together  of 
colored  people,"  said  Mr.  Fortune,  "  at  the  close  of  an  edito 
rial  which  I  published  five  weeks  ago  upon  the  lynching  of 
four  colored  men  at  York,  S.  C.  I  asked  if  the  colored  peo 
ple  of  the  whole  country  couldn't  band  themselves  together 
in  some  way  and  do  something  to  better  the  condition  of  our 
race  in  the  South,  as  well  as  to  secure  some  of  the  civil 
rights  which  are  denied  us  in  the  North.  The  idea  was 
taken  up  and  advocated  by  all  the  leading  newspapers  edited 
by  colored  men  in  the  land,  and  received  the  endorsement  of 

our  leading  colored  citizens We  don't  fear  that 

this  formation  of  the  race  into  a  separate  political  organiza- 


$4  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

tion  can  draw  upon  it  any  greater  social  ostracism  than  it 
suffers  now. 

"  The  work  of  preliminary  organization  is  going  on  splen 
didly.  We  have  a  large  organization  in  Virginia,  and  I 
understand  that  the  first  steps  toward  State  organization  in 
Connecticut  were  taken  yesterday  in  Hartford  by  the  coali 
tion  of  the  negro  societies  there." — The  New  York  Sun, 
July  15,  1887. 

WASHINGTON. — Referring  to  a  dispatch  published  re 
cently,  stating  that  there  was  much  dissatisfaction  and  suffer 
ing  among  the  colored  people  who  had  emigrated  to  Liberia 
from  this  country,  William  Coppinger,  the  Liberian  consul 
general  and  secretary  of  the  Colonization  Society,  said  to-day 
that  the  report  was  a  great  exaggeration  of  the  facts. 

"  It  is  just  the  same  in  Liberia,"  he  continued,  "  as  the 
world  over.  Some  emigrants  succeed  and  some  fail." 

Mr.  Coppinger  said  that  he  had  received  few  complaints 
and  they  were  unable  to  respond  to  all  the  applications  they 
received.  He  added : 

"  Since  our  society  was  organized  we  have  given  homes  to 
about  twenty  thousand  colored  people  in  the  land  of  their 
fathers,  and  we  are  sending  others  as  fast  as  we  can  raise 
the  necessary  funds.  We  could  send  a  million  to-day  if  we 
had  the  wherewithal  with  which  to  do  it.  You  have  no  idea 
of  the  unrest  there  is  in  the  minds  of  the  colored  population 
and  the  desire  they  have  to  return  to  Africa." 

"  Where  do  most  of  these  appeals  come  from  ?  " 

"Well,  of  course,  the  largest  number  come  from  the 
South,  for  the  bulk  of  the  colored  population  is  in  the  South, 
but  that  does  not  mean  that  the  colored  people  in  the  North 
ern  States  are  better  satisfied  with  their  condition  than  those 
of  the  South.  I  am  receiving  large  numbers  of  appeals  from 
the  colored  people  of  Kansas,  many  of  whom  went  there 
during  the  exodus  of  some  years  ago.  They  did  not  im 
prove  their  condition  as  much  as  they  expected.  At  any 


RA  CE-PREJUDICE,  SO  UTH  AND  NOR  TH.        85 

rate,  they  are  very  anxious  to  exchange  Kansas  for  Africa. 
We  are  sending  more  or  less  of  them,  but  cannot  respond  to 
anything  like  the  number  of  appeals  we  get." 

"  What  seems  to  be  the  reason  of  the  desire  of  the  colored 
people  in  the  North  for  leaving  the  country  ?  " 

"  They  feel  that  they  are  not  a  part  of  the  dominant  race, 
and  that  they  are  not  properly  recognized  socially  and  politi 
cally  by  the  whites,  and  never  will  be.  The  general  public 
do  not  understand  how  strong  this  feeling  is  with  the  ne 
groes,  and  it  will  probably  continue  so.  Many  of  them  feel 
it  very  keenly.  We  hear  it  in  a  marked  degree  from  those 
who  went  to  Kansas  a  few  years  ago." — Associated  Press 
dispatch,  July  17,  1887. 


ST.  PAUL. — Fifty  colored  men  from  various  parts  of  the 
State  met  last  night  and  organized  a  Minnesota  Protective 
Industrial  League,  for  the  advancement  of  the  interests  of 
the  race  in  this  State.  A  permanent  organization  was 
effected  with  L.  H.  Reynolds,  president.  A  constitution 
was  adopted,  which  declares  the  object  of  the  League  to  be 
to  secure  to  colored  citizens  of  the  State  the  full  and  free 
enjoyment  of  their  natural  and  civil  rights,  impartial  trials, 
freedom  from  slander  and  odium  through  the  press,  and  to 
arrange  for  colored  immigration  to  this  State. — Associated 
Press  dispatch,  Dec.  7,  1887. 

CHICAGO. — A  special  from  Indianapolis  says  :  Col.  A.  O. 
Jones  of  the  State  auditor's  office,  who  is  connected  with  the 
latest  proposed  exodus  of  negroes  from  the  Southern  States 
to  South  America,  talks  freely  about  the  scheme.  He  is  an 
active  friend  of  all  movements  for  the  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  his  race.  He  accompanied  Gov.  Chamberlain, 
together  with  several  other  young  colored  men,  to  South 
Carolina  from  Massachusetts.  "  The  exodus,"  he  says, 

will  be  effectually  pushed This  is  not  a  question 

of  politics  at  bottom We  have  selected  South  Amer- 


86  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

ica  for  the  location.  Our  people  do  not  want  to  come 
North  and  West  because  of  climatic  conditions,  and  because 
the  prejudice  against  a  black  face  follows  them  even  there  !  " 
— Associated  Press  dispatch,  January  27,  1888. 

What  the  race  has  gained,  came  to  it  through  the  antag 
onisms  and  animosities  of  the  white  race.  We  have  pros 
pered  by  their  falling  out,  and  the  most  serious  question  for 
us  is  what  shall  we  lose  by  their  friendship. 

The  white  people  of  the  United  States  cannot  always  be 
separate  and  distinct.  The  Northern  and  Southern  people 
can't  always  remember  the  war  and  its  incidents.  The  time 
is  coming,  if  it  is  not  already  here,  when  the  Southern  whites 
and  the  Northern  whites  will  be  in  perfect  accord.  What  is 
then  to  become  of  us  ?  The  question  makes  me  thoughtful, 
but  not  despairing.  My  hope  is  in  the  growing  intelligence 
of  the  colored  race.  My  belief  is  that  we  shall  yet  exercise 
all  the  functions  of  the  American  citizen. — From  Address  of 
Mr.  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  March  8, 
1888.  Report  of  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier. 


As  long  as  the  separate  school  system  is  adhered  to,  based 
upon  color,  prejudice  will  never   die  out,  and  will  always 

work  to  the  great  disadvantage  of  the  colored  citizen 

It  is  felt  in  all  the  various  industries  in  the  country.  When 
ever  you  wish  employment  for  your  son  in  the  machine  shop, 
you  are  told  that  if  I  give  your  son  employment  my  work 
men  will  not  work,  and  your  son  fails  of  employment ;  but 
if  the  workmen  had  been  brought  up  side  by  side  with  the 
colored  boy  in  school,  there  would  be  no  trouble  about  their 
working  together  through  life.  When  a  colored  man  op 
poses  mixed  schools,  he  is  encouraging  his  white  fellow  citi 
zens  to  keep  up  prejudice  and  helping  to  close  the  door  of 
the  workshop  against  his  son.  Our  streets  are  full  of  young 
men  ready  and  willing  to  learn  trades,  and  enter  the  various 
kinds  of  employment,  who  are  kept  from  so  doing  on  ac- 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        87 

count  of  this  prejudice,  which  will  never  be  wiped  out  except 
through  one  public  school  for  all  American  citizens.  You 
may  educate  your  sons,  but  they  cannot  all  be  professional 
men ;  there  must  be  an  opening  for  them  in  other  directions. 
There  is  no  inducement  held  out  to  the  colored  young  man 
attending  school  to  encourage  him  for  the  future,  no  place 
of  employment  can  he  see  in  the  distance  when  he  has  fin 
ished  his  high  school ;  but  when  his  school  days  are  over  he 
is  thrown  upon  the  world  to  struggle  for  his  bread,  and 
forced  to  face  a  mountain  of  prejudice." — The  Leader, 
Washington,  D.  C,  Dec.  24,  1888. 


Save  us  from  our  friends,  must  be  the  sentiment  of  all 
intelligent  colored  persons  toward  a  bit  of  correspondence 
from  New  York  to  the  Cleveland  Gazette,  with  the  signature 
of  "  SCOTT."  This  is  part  of  it : 

"  Let  me  tell  you  that  amidst  anarchy  and  confusion  lies 
the  negro's  opportunity.  Whenever  the  negro  has  gained 
entrance  to  the  workshop,  it  has  been  because  of  labor  trou 
bles.  The  labor  troubles  of  1877  opened  to  him  the  shops 
at  Indianapolis,  Springfield,  and  Pittsburgh.  Whenever, 
since  then,  foreign  workmen  have  made  a  general  strike, 
negro  labor  has  been  advanced." 

"  Piping  times  of  peace  "  are  not  conducive  to  the  negro's 
welfare.  When  business  is  good,  and  the  American  mer 
chant  and  manufacturer  living  at  ease,  with  nothing  much  to 
do  save  to  clip  off  his  coupons,  he  is  not  disposed  to  stir  up 
the  hands  in  his  mill  or  office  by  introducing  a  black  face 
among  them. — New  York  Sun,  Dec.,  1888. 

We  do  not  need  to  look  South  for  crimes  against  our  race. 
In  the  most  highly  civilized  regions  of  the  "  culchared " 
East,  and  in  the  reputed  Christian  North,  outrages  are  daily 
committed  against  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Negro. 
The  "  Northern  problem  "  differs  from  the  Southern  only  in 
species  of  manifestation,  not  in  organic  principle.  The  true 
solution  of  the  whole  trouble  is  to  have  no  Northern  or 


88  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

Southern  problem  per  set  but  a  grand  national  problem 
which  contemplates  the  equal  and  exact  enforcement  of  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  our  constitution. — Indianapolis  Freeman, 
Feb.  23,  1889.  

This  prejudice  is  most  sharply  defined  and  emphasized  by 
the  refusal  of  decent  habitations  for  us,  even  though  our 
people  are  willing  to  pay  larger  rentals  than  are  required 
from  white  tenants.  The  agents  and  landlords  are  not  alto 
gether  responsible  for  this  condition  of  things But 

the  landlords  are  afraid  to  rent  to  colored  people  because  of 
the  objection  of  white  people  living  in  the  same  building  or 
in  the  same  neighborhood  with  colored  people. — The  Rev. 
H.  C.  BISHOP,  Rector  of  St.  Philip's  Church,  New  York,  in 
the  Times,  April,  1889.  

The  American  Citizen,  of  Kansas  City,  con 
ducted  by  colored  men,  in  discussing  a  theory  of 
President  Harrison's  "  Southern  policy,"  which 
should  divide  the  votes  of  the  whites  on  economic 
issues,  says  : 

But  if  such  a  policy  should  succeed,  to  what  extent 
will  it  profit  the  negro  ?  Will  it  benefit  his  social  or  civil 
condition?  Will  it  make  less  indistinct  the  lines  of  caste! 
Will  it  lift  him  up  in  the  mind  of  the  Southern  whites  to  the 

dignity  of  a  man  and  citizen  ?  We  think  not The 

negro's  vote  is  counted  in  many  of  the  Middle  and  Northern 
States,  and  his  presence  at  the  ballot-box  excites  no  comment, 
and  yet,  even  in  those  States,  his  immunities  are  abridged. 
....  The  rise  of  the  negro  to  an  equal  footing  with  the 
other  races  will  be  a  long,  slow  process. — August  — ,  1889. 

The  former  spirit  of  prejudice  exercised  against  the  colored 
mechanic,  working  alongside  of  the  white,  is  more  rapidly 
dying  out  in  the  South  than,  it  appears,  in  the  North.  .  .  . 

In  the  North  the  idea  is  against  the  equality  of  the  Negro 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        89 

as  a  race ;  for  he  who  will  aid  and  assist  the  Negro  to  become 
educated  as  an  individual  in  school,  college,  or  university, 
will  close  the  doors  of  the  workshop,  the  store  of  merchan 
dize,  the  counting  house,  and  the  printing  press  against  him  ; 
and  union  leagues  of  trade  deny  him  admission. —  The  New 
South  Investigated.  By  D.  A.  STRAKER,  Detroit.  Pp. 
34—36. 

Is  it  not  made  plain  by  even  this  brief  array  of 
testimony,  that  the  prejudice  against  the  Negro 
is  very  largely  shared  by  the  white  people  of  the 
Northern  States?  And  when  it  is  considered 
how  small  is  the  whole  number  of  negroes  in  the 
North,  their  superior  intelligence  and  character 
as  representatives  of  their  race;  the  absence  of 
causes  of  dissension  and  difference  with  them  and 
of  occasions  to  provoke  the  exhibition  of  preju 
dice  against  them:  when  we  reflect  upon  the 
professions  of  unbiased  opinion  and  of  liberal 
sentiment  regarding  the  Negro,  "  as  a  man";  upon 
what  the  Northern  people  have  sacrificed  for  him, 
and  done  for  him,  in  the  assertion  of  opinions 
and  sentiments,  and  in  the  endeavor  to  establish 
him  upon  the  high  pedestal  assigned  to  him  in 
the  South, — when  we  consider  and  reflect  upon 
these  things,  can  it  be  said  indeed  that  there  is 
in  the  North  less  prejudice  towards  him  than  is 
displayed  by  the  white  people  of  the  Southern 
States  ? 

We  may  leave  this  question  unanswered,  how 
ever,  and  may  abandon  this  particular  line  of  dis 
cussion  incontinently.  It  is  unprofitable  in  itself, 
and  leads  to  no  desirable  ground.  The  purpose 


90  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

in  following  it  so  far  was  only  to  show  that  the 
prejudice  against  the  Negro  is  not  peculiar  to  the 
white  man  of  the  South ;  and  this  has  been 
proved,  assuredly.  The  investigation  has,  how 
ever,  established  another  important  and  related 
fact.  Whatever  the  reason  for  his  conduct,  the 
Negro  avoids  the  Northern  States.  It  is  of  little 
consequence — at  this  stage  of  his  occupation  of 
our  soil — whether  or  not  the  sentiment  against 
him  is  as  strong,  or  nearly  as  strong,  in  the  North 
as  it  is  in  the  South.  If  there  were  indeed  no 
prejudice  whatever  against  him  in  the  minds  of 
the  Northern  white  man,  this  would  not  affect 
the  sentiment  and  conduct  of  the  Southern  white 
man  in  the  slightest  degree,  so  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  past  experience  and  observation.  The 
prejudice  is  certainly  active,  relentless  and  gen 
eral  in  the  South,  where  the  Negro  elects  to 
remain  nevertheless,  and  where  the  number  of 
his  people  amounts  already  to  millions  instead  of 
a  few  thousands  only.  The  question  as  to  his 
status  in  America  is,  for  the  present,  a  question 
as  to  his  relations  with  the  white  people  of  the 
South ;  we  shall  act  wisely  if  we  study  it  as  it  is 
presented  there  ;  without  shutting  our  eyes  to  its 
essential  and  probable  permanent  conditions. 

Our  survey  of  the  relations  of  the  white  and 
black  races  where  they  have  been  brought  into 
contact  in  considerable  numbers  in  America  has 
not  yet  included,  as  has  been  noted  doubtless, 
the  relations  of  the  two  races  in  the  West  Indies. 


RA  CE-PREJUDICE,  SO  UTH  AND  NOR  TH.        9  J 

There  is  good  reason  for  the  omission.  The  con 
ditions  existing  in  those  islands  and  in  the  South 
ern  States  are  too  widely  unlike  to  afford  much 
ground  for  instructive  comparison.  The  black 
race  is  present  in  overwhelming  numbers  on  all 
the  larger  islands  in  question  except  Cuba,  and 
has  controlled  some  of  them  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years  after  its  own  fashion.  The  negroes  in  the 
United  States  constitute  but  a  tenth  of  the 
whole  population,  are  in  a  minority  in  nearly  eveiy 
Southern  State,  and  control  no  part  whatever  of 
the  extended  territory  occupied  by  them.  What 
ever  the  lesson  taught  by  the  history  of  the  West 
Indies,  therefore,  it  has  little  especial  significance 
for  us ;  and  probably  will  never  have  more  than 
now. 

The  social  and  political  relations  of  the  white 
colonists  on  the  islands,  with  their  black  neigh 
bors  and  fellow-citizens,  are  alone  pertinent  to 
our  purpose,  and  should  be  considered  briefly. 
There  is  no  lack  of  other  competent  evidence  on 
this  subject,  but  we  may  confine  ourselves  for  the 
most  part  to  the  testimony  of  a  recent  disinter 
ested  visitor  to  the  colonies,  who  has  no  concern 
in  our  disputes,  and  who  has  recorded  what  he 
saw  and  heard,  without  the  remotest  reference  to 
our  affairs.  The  visitor  is  the  distinguished  En 
glish  historian,  Mr.  James  Anthony  Froude,  from 
whose  recently  published  book,  The  English  in 
the  West  Indies,  the  following  passages  are 
taken  ; 


92  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

The  personal  influence  of  the  white  man  over  the  black, 
which  might  have  been  brought  about  by  a  friendly  inter 
course  after  slavery  was  abolished,  was  never  so  much  as 

attempted The  forced  equality  of  the  races  before 

the  law  made  more  difficult  the  growth  of  any  kindly  feel 
ing No  relations  remained  save  that  of  employer  and 

employed.  They  lived  apart.  They  had  no  longer,  save 
in  exceptional  instances,  any  personal  communication  with 
each  other.  The  law  refusing  to  recognize  a  difference,  the 
social  line  was  drawn  the  harder,  which  the  law  was  unable 
to  reach  (p.  106). 

From  general  conversation  [in  Kingston]  I  gathered  that 
....  there  was  the  same  uneasy  social  jealousy,  and  the 
absence  of  any  social  relations  between  the  two  races. 
There  were  mulattoes  in  the  island  of  wealth  and  conse 
quence,  and  at  the  Government  House  there  are  no  distinc 
tions  ;  but  the  English  residents  of  pure  colonial  blood 
would  not  associate  with  them,  social  exclusiveness  increas 
ing  with  political  equality.  The  impression  was  .... 
that  the  tendency  of  the  whites  and  blacks  was  to  a  con- 
stantly  sharpening  separation  (p.  213). 

Slavery  could  not  last ;  but  neither  can  the  condition  last 
which  has  followed  it.  The  equality  between  black  and 
white  is  a  forced  equality  and  not  a  real  one,  and  Nature  in 
the  long  run  has  her  way,  and  readjusts  in  their  proper  re 
lations  what  theorists  and  philanthropists  have  disturbed 
(P-  247).  

The  white  gentry  have  blacks  for  laborers,  blacks  for  do 
mestic  servants,  yet  as  a  rule  they  have  no  interest  in  each 
other,  no  esteem  nor  confidence  (p.  258). 


Where  in  character,  in  mutual  force,  in  energy,  in  cultiva 
tion,  there  is  no  equality  at  all,  but  an  inequality  which  has 
existed  for  thousands  of  years,  and  is  as  plain  to-day  as  it 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH*        93 

was  in  the  Egypt  of  the  Pharaohs,  to  expect  that  the  intelli 
gent  few  will  submit  to  the  unintelligent  many  is  to  expect 
what  has  never  been  found  and  what  never  ought  to  be 
found.  The  whites  cannot  be  trusted  to  rule  the  blacks,  but 
for  the  blacks  to  rule  the  whites  is  a  yet  grosser  anomaly. 
Were  England  out  of  the  way,  there  would  be  a  war  of  ex 
termination  between  them.  England  prohibits  it,  and  holds 
the  balance  in  forced  equality  (p.  262), 

The  Legislature  [of  Jamaica]  represented  the  white  inter 
est  only,  and  was  entirely  composed  of  whites.  It  remained 
substantially  unaltered  till  1855,  when  modifications  were 
made  which  admitted  colored  men  to  the  suffrage,  though 
with  so  high  a  franchise  as  to  be  almost  exclusive.  It  be 
came  generally  felt  that  the  franchise  would  have  to  be 
extended.  .  .  „  .  The  assembly,  aware  that  if  allowed  to 
exist  any  longer  it  could  exist  only  with  the  broad  admission 
of  the  negro  vote,  pronounced  its  own  dissolution,  surren 
dered  its  powers  to  the  Crown,  and  represented  formally  that 
nothing  but  a  strong  government  could  prevent  the  island 
from  lapsing  into  the  condition  of  Hayti  (pp.  201-2). 

The  relations  between  the  two  populations  are  too  embit 
tered,  and,  equality  once  established  by  law,  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  color  over  color  cannot  be  restored.  While 
slavery  continued  the  whites  ruled  effectively  and  economi 
cally  ;  the  blacks  are  now  as  free  as  they ;  there  are  two 
classes  in  the  community;  their  interests  are  opposite  as 
they  are  now  understood,  and  one  cannot  be  trusted  with 
control  over  the  other.  As  little  can  the  present  order  of 
things  continue  (p.  286). 

The  scanty  whites  are  told  that  they  must  work  out  their 
own  salvation  on  equal  terms  with  their  old  servants.  The 

relation  is  an  impossible   one The  two  races  are 

not  equal  and  will  not  blend  (pp.  123-4). 


94  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

The  English  of  those  islands  are  melting  away.  Families 
who  had  been  for  generations  on  the  soil  are  selling  their 
estates  everywhere,  and  are  going  off.  Lands  once  under 
high  cultivation  are  lapsing  into  jungle  (p.  284). 


The  deep-rooted  prejudice  of  the  white  man 
against  the  black  man  could  not  be  more  plainly 
and  persistently  exhibited,  it  is  seen,  than  it  is 
exhibited  in  these  neighboring  colonies,  under 
governmental  and  other  conditions  entirely  dif 
ferent  from  those  which  obtain  in  the  United 
States.  The  power  of  the  race-prejudice,  how 
ever,  is  not  exemplified  in  the  West  Indies  by 
the  conduct  of  the  white  man  alone.  There  are 
about  ten  thousand  coolies  in  the  colonies,  of 
whom  Mr.  Froude  says : 

They  are  proud  and  will  not  intermarry  with  the  Afri 
cans.  If  there  is  no  jealousy,  there  is  no  friendship.  The 
two  races  are  more  absolutely  apart  than  the  white  and  the 
black. 

Nor  are  the  blacks  free  from  the  domination  of 
the  same  kind  of  prejudice,  when  they  are  in  po 
sition  to  assert  it.  The  white  man  has  no  status 
in  Liberia,  as  is  well  known.  The  black  man  is 
master  of  St.  Domingo  also,  and  has  been  for 
nearly  a  century.  What  is  his  behavior  there  to 
the  man  of  different  color  from  his  own  ?  There 
is  some  striking  testimony  in  Mr.  Froude's  book 
on  this  point : 

There  is  a  saying  in  Hayti  that  the  white  man  has  no 
rights  which  the  blacks  are  bound  to  recognize.  .  .  . 
They  can  own  no  freehold  property,  and  exist  only  on  toler-* 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.        95 

ance.  They  are  called  "  white  trash."  Black  dukes  and 
marquises  drive  over  them  in  the  street  and  swear  at  them 
(p.  192). 


Englishmen  move  about  in  Jacmel  as  if  they  were  ashamed 
of  themselves  among  their  dusky  lords  and  masters.  The 
presence  of  Europeans  in  any  form  is  barely  tolerated  (pp. 
I84-S). 

It  will  be  said,  of  course,  that  this  intolerance 
of  white  men  is  natural  to  the  negroes  of  the 
West  Indies,  in  view  of  the  former  relations  of 
the  two  races,  and  is  but  a  reflection  of  the  sen 
timent  from  which  the  blacks  have  suffered.  We 
seem,  however,  to  be  shut  out  from  accepting 
this  plausible  explanation  by  the  fact  which  has 
been  noted  of  the  antipathy  between  the  blacks 
and  the  coolies,  and  by  the  further  fact  that 
the  genuine  Negro  manifests  the  strongest  dis 
like  to  the  white  man  who  is  subordinate  to  him 
and  to  the  half-breed,  or  mulatto,  who  was  for 
merly  his  fellow-slave,  and  who  certainly  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  white  man  except 
his  disowned  blood.  The  attitude  of  the  Negro 
toward  these  of  his  neighbors  is  thus  described 
by  Mr.  Froude  : 

The  negro  voters  might  elect,  to  begin  with,  their  half- 
caste  attorneys,  or  such  whites  (the  most  disreputable  of 
their  color)  as  would  court  their  suffrages.  But  the  black 
does  not  love  the  mulatto,  and  despises  the  white  man  who 
consents  to  be  his  servant  (p.  88). 

The  blacks  hate  the  mulattoes,  and  the  mulatto  breed  will 
not  maintain  itself,  as  with  the  independence  of  the  blacks 


96  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

the  intimacy  between  blacks  and  whites  diminishes  and  must 
diminish  (p.  97). 

The  blacks  disliked  the  mulattoes  ;  the  mulattoes  despised 
the  blacks,  and  would  not  intermarry  with  them  (p.  213). 

The  intensity  of  the  prejudice  against  the  half- 
breeds,  however,  is  now  moderated  in  the  colonies 
by  the  restraining  power  of  the  government.  Its 
free  expression  was  exhibited  in  Hayti  soon  after 
the  massacre  and  expulsion  of  the  whites,  when, 
it  is  stated,  15,000  mulattoes  were  put  to  death 
within  two  years.  The  number  of  the  killed  may 
be  exaggerated,  indeed,  but  there  is  no  room  for 
a  doubt  as  to  the  motive  for  their  slaughter. 

Too  much  stress  should  not  be  laid,  as  has  been 
said,  upon  the  conduct  of  the  negroes  in  the  West 
Indian  colonies  and  republics,  for  the  reason 
already  given  that  the  circumstances  of  the 
blacks  in  those  countries,  and  especially  the  con 
ditions  of  government  under  which  they  live, 
are  too  widely  different  from  those  which  affect 
the  blacks  in  the  United  States  to  afford  much 
ground  for  instructive  comparison.  There  is  in 
struction,  however,  without  instituting  any  kind 
of  comparison,  in  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
actual  past  and  present  conditions  of  the  black 
race  in  St.  Domingo  ;  for  the  reason  that  there 
alone  has  the  Negro  enjoyed  for  a  long  period  the 
opportunity  to  exhibit  his  capacity  for  self  gov 
ernment,  in  an  independent  field,  and  under  cir 
cumstances  favorable  to  his  self  development,  if 
the  spirit  of  development  is  in  him ;  and  for  the 


RA CE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  A ND  NOR TH.       9 7 

further  reason  that  under  such  peculiar  conditions 
only  can  we  learn  what  are  the  essential  charac 
teristics  of  the  material  with  which  we  have  to  do 
in  forcing  or  aiding  his  development  under  the 
conditions  of  our  own  making  and  inheritance. 

The  view  that  is  offered  for  our  contemplation 
is  not  a  pleasing  one  ;  but  there  is  no  other;  and 
it  must  be  presented  here  for  the  information  of 
those  who  are  not  familiar  with  it,  and  for  the 
consideration  of  some  others  among  us  who  are 
perhaps  too  much  inclined  to  follow  blindly  the 
dictates  of  political  expediency  or  of  philanthro- 
pical  sentiment  without  regard  to  the  facts  and 
lessons  of  history. 

Mr.  Froude's  book,  The  English  in  the  West 
Indies,  supplies  all  the  information  that  is  needed 
for  our  purpose,  and  in  concise  form.  The  his 
tory  and  present  status  of  the  Island  of  St. 
Domingo  are  summarized  by  him  as  follows : 

St.  Domingo,  of  which  Hayti  is  the  largest  division,  was 
the  earliest  island  discovered  by  Columbus,  and  the  finest  in 
the  Caribbean  Ocean.  The  Spaniards  found  there  a  million 
or  two  of  mild  and  innocent  Indians  whom  .  .  .  they  con 
verted  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  working  them  to  death  in 
their  mines  and  plantations.  They  filled  their  places  with 
blacks  from  Africa.  They  colonized,  they  built  cities ;  they 
throve  and  prospered  for  nearly  200  years,  when  Hayti  was 
taken  from  them  and  made  a  French  province.  The  French 
kept  it  till  the  Revolution.  They  built  towns  ;  they  laid  out 
farms  and  sugar  fields  ;  they  planted  coffee  all  over  the 
island,  where  it  now  grows  wild.  Vast  herds  of  cattle 
roamed  over  the  mountains  ;  splendid  houses  rose  over  the 


98  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH, 

rich  savannahs.  The  French  Church  put  out  its  strength ; 
there  were  churches  and  priests  in  every  parish.  So  firm  was 
the  hold  that  they  had  gained  that  Hayti,  like  Cuba,  seemed 
to  have  been  made  a  part  of  the  old  world,  and  as  civilized 
as  France  itself.  The  revolution  came,  and  the  reign  of 
Liberty.  The  blacks  took  arms  ;  they  surprised  the  planta 
tions  ;  they  made  a  clean  sweep  of  the  whole  French  popu 
lation.  .  .  .  The  island  being  thus  derelict,  Spain  and  Eng 
land  both  tried  their  hand  to  recover  it,  but  failed  .  .  . 
and  a  black  nation,  with  a  republican  constitution  and  a 
population  perhaps  of  about  a  million  and  a  half  of  pure 
blood  negroes,  has  since  been  in  unchallenged  possession, 
and  has  arrived  at  the  condition  which  has  been  described 
to  us  by  Sir  Spencer  St.  John  (p.  182). 


Morals  in  the  technical  sense  they  have  none ;  but  they 
cannot  be  said  to  sin,  because  they  have  no  knowledge  of  a 
law.  They  are  naked  and  not  ashamed.  They  sin,  but 
they  sin  only  as  animals,  without  shame,  because  there  is  no 
sense  of  doing  wrong.  In  fact,  these  poor  children  of  dark 
ness  have  escaped  the  consequences  of  the  Fall,  and  must 
have  come  of  another  stock  after  all  (p.  50). 


Evidently,  they  belonged  to  a  race  far  inferior  to  the 
Zulus  and  Caffres,  whom  I  had  known  in  South  Africa. 
They  would  have  been  slaves  in  their  own  country,  if  they 
had  not  been  brought  to  ours ;  and  at  the  worst  had  lost 
nothing  by  the  change  (p.  49). 

The  West  Indian  negro  i*  conscious  of  his  own  defects  .  .  . 
and  with  a  century  or  two  of  wise  administration  might 
prove  that  his  inferiority  is  not  inherent  (p.  98). 

A  religion  which  will  keep  the  West  Indian  blacks  from 
falling  back  into  devil-worship  is  still  to  seek  (p.  234). 


^ACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH.       99 

Immorality  is  so  universal  that  it  almost  ceases  to  be  a 
fault  .  .  .  it  is  the  rule.  In  spite  of  schools  and  mission 
aries,  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  children  now  born  among  them 
are  illegitimate.  Young  people  make  experiment  of  one  an 
other  before  they  will  enter  into  any  closer  connection.  So 
far  they  are  no  worse  than  in  our  own  English  islands, 
where  the  custom  is  equally  general ;  but  behind  the  re 
ligiosity,  there  lies  active  and  alive  the  horrible  revival  of  the 
West  African  superstitions ;  the  serpent-worship,  and  the 
child-sacrifice,  and  the  cannibalism.  The  facts  are  notori 
ous.  ...  A  few  years  ago  persons  guilty  of  these  infamies 
were  tried  and  punished ;  now  they  are  left  alone  because 
to  prosecute  and  convict  them  would  be  to  acknowledge  the 
truth  of  the  indictment. 

The  blacks,  as  long  as  they  were  slaves,  were  docile  and 
partly  civilized  .  .  .  but  the  effect  of  leaving  the  negro  na 
ture  to  itself  is  apparent  at  last There  is  no  sign,  not 

the  slightest,  that  the  generality  of  the  race  are  improving 
either  in  intelligence  or  moral  habits ;  all  the  evidence  is  the 

other  way The  generality  are  mere  good-natured 

animals The  customs  of  Dahomey  have  not  yet  shown 

themselves  in  the  English  West  Indies 'and  never  can  while 
the  English  authority  is  maintained  :  but  no  custom  of  any 
kind  will  be  found  in  a  negro  hut  or  village  from  which  his 
most  sanguine  friend  can  derive  a  hope  that  he  is  on  the 
way  to  mending  himself.  Ninety  years  of  negro  self-gov 
ernment  have  had  their  use  in  showing  what  it  really 
means  ....  The  movement  is  backward,  not  forward 
(PP-  343-  344,  348). 

There  is  unlimited  testimony,  covering  the 
period  of  the  past  fifty  years,  to  support  all  and 
more  than  all  that  Mr.  Froude  has  asserted.  We 
need  not  multiply  witnesses,  however,  who  differ 
only  in  their  ability  to  express  themselves  in  strong 
language.  Nor  need  we  repeat  their  comments 


loo  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

on  the  state  of  affairs  which  they  describe.  It  is 
enough  to  say,  instead :  i.  That  there  is  evi 
dently  a  strong  and  confirmed  prejudice  on  the 
part  of  the  white  residents  of  the  West  Indies, 
of  whatever  nationality,  against  the  Negro.  2. 
That  there  are  ample  and  increasing  grounds  for 
the  prejudice,  aside  from  political  relations.  3. 
That  there  is  the  same  reason,  no  more  nor  less, 
for  the  exhibition  of  the  same  prejudice  on  the 
part  of  the  white  people  of  the  Southern  States 
towards  the  negroes  in  the  Southern  States — 
since  the  negroes  in  those  States  are  members  of 
the  same  peculiar  and  hapless  sub-family  of  the 
African  race  to  which  the  Haytian  negro  be 
longs.*  4.  And  finally  it  should  be  added  that: 
our  general  review  of  the  relations  of  the  white 
man  and  Negro — a  review  which  has  included, 


*  The  identity  of  the  negroes  on  the  continent  of  America 
with  those  of  St.  Domingo  and  other  West  Indian  islands  is  too 
often  lost  sight  of  ;  it  should  be  kept  prominently  in  view.  The 
authoritative  statement  of  their  common  origin,  and  of  their  dis 
tinctive  physical  marks — without  going  into  details  of  structural 
peculiarities — is  as  follows  : 

"  Negro,  a  name  properly  applied  to  the  races  inhabiting  the 
African  continent,  principally  between  latitude  10°  N.  and  20° 
S.,  and  to  their  descendants  in  the  old  and  new  world  ....  The 
term  negro  denotes  an  ideal  type  distinguished  by  certain  physical 
characters,  such  as  are  seen  in  the  people  of  the  coast  of  Guinea, 
viz :  black  skin,  woolly  hair,  flat  nose,  thick  everted  lips,  and  a 
prognathous  form  of  skull.  Negroes  occupy  about  one-half  of 
Africa,  excluding  the  Northern  and  Southern  extremities.  Out  of 
Africa  they  are  found  ....  throughout  America  and  the  West 
Indies." — American  Encyclopaedia.  Art.  Negro. 


RACE-PREJUDICE,  SOUTH  AND  NORTH,      roi 

so  far  as  practicable,  the  conduct  of  white  men 
of  nearly  every  nation  in  the  civilized  world  in 
their  association  with  the  black  men  under  every 
variety  of  government  and  condition — has  af 
forded  us  no  single  instance  of  the  absence  of  the 
prejudice  among  any  people,  or  of  its  weakening 
in  the  slightest  degree,  in  any  course  of  time,  in 
any  country  where  the  occasion  is  presented  for 
its  exhibition. 

There  is  therefore  no  basis  whatever  in  all  our 
knowledge  of  the  conduct  of  the  white  race  gen 
erally,  for  the  expectation  that  the  antipathy  of 
the  white  man  of  the  Southern  States  to  the 
Negro  will  ever  be  appreciably  moderated. 


VII. 

A  TRILEMMA. 

THERE  is  no  basis  for  the  expectation  that 
the  antipathy  between  the  white  man  and  the 
Negro  will  ever  be  appreciably  moderated.  The 
two  races  in  America  will  remain  apart,  in  obe 
dience  to  a  law  that  is  so  nearly  if  not  wholly 
universal  in  its  operation  that  we  are  compelled 
to  regard  it  as  a  fundamental  law  of  human 
nature,  and  therefore  beyond  hope  of  repeal  or 
evasion. 

These  assertions  and  assumptions  are  of  the 
most  momentous  character,  truly,  and  everything 
depends  on  their  truth.  The  negro  question 
is  practically  a  question  of  the  future  relations  of 
the  white  and  colored  people  in  America ;  and 
this  question  easily  resolves  itself  again  into  the 
ultimate  inquiry  as  to  the  probable  persistence  or 
decline  of  the  race-prejudice  in  the  mind  of  the 
white  man  of  the  South.  This  last,  then,  is  the 
all-important  question  which  remains  to  be  con 
sidered.  We  can  agree  or  disagree  about  much 
of  what  has  gone  before,  and  be  little  the  worse 
for  disagreement  in  any  event.  We  can  not  af 
ford  to  make  any  mistake  in  taking  the  next  step. 

102 


A   TRILEMMA.  103 

Is  it  probable  that  the  white  people  of  the 
South,  for  any  reason  or  motive,  under  any  cir 
cumstances  that  are  likely  to  arise,  will  ever 
regard  the  negroes  among  whom  they  live  with 
much  less  aversion, — or  with  more  favor,  if  that 
term  be  preferred, — than  they  now  entertain 
towards  them  ? 

The  answer  must  be  an  emphatic,  unqualified 
negative,  if  we  can  determine  the  probable  future 
conduct  of  the  people  in  question  by  what  we 
know  of  their  past  and  present  conduct,  and  of 
their  sentiment  and  disposition  however  mani 
fested.  For,  what  single  reason  have  we  to 
expect  a  change  in  any  of  these  respects?  No 
such  reason  presents  itself  to  ordinary  minds, 
assuredly.  The  prejudice  of  race  has  always  been 
exhibited,  and  is  still  exhibited,  by  every  white 
man,  woman  and  child  in  the  South.  It  is  rooted 
in  the  minds  of  fifteen  millions  of  people.  Argu 
ment  does  not  touch  it.  All  the  pleadings  and 
protests  and  threats  and  blows  that  have  been 
employed  to  modify  it  have  not  affected  it  in  any 
individual  mind, — save  to  confirm  and  strengthen 
it.  It  is  stronger  to-day,  if  possible,  than  ever 
before.  It  is  so  strong  that  it  laughs  at  the  sug 
gestion  of  yielding. 

There  is  not  a  white  person  in  the  old  Slave 
States — not  one — who  advocates  a  change  in  any 
respect  in  the  social  relations  of  the  two  races ; 
not  one  entertains  the  thought  of  change. 

The  existing  status  is  perfectly  satisfactory  to 


104  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

all  those  who  alone  can  change  it  ;  and  is  jeal 
ously  maintained  by  them.  They  regard  as  ene 
mies  all  who  would  overthrow  or  even  disturb  it. 
Their  whole  energy  is  directed  to  preserving  the 
situation  as  it  is,  from  the  first  approach  toward 
a  change. 

The  evidence  and  results  of  this  disposition 
cannot  be  overlooked  or  misunderstood,  and  have 
been  fully  exhibited  in  a  preceding  chapter.  The 
whites  and  blacks  of  mature  age,  it  was  shown, 
are  absolutely  separated  in  every  relation  of  life 
which  would  require  them  to  meet  under  even 
the  semblance  of  equality.  The  white  and  black 
youths  are  only  farther  apart  than  their  parents. 
The  younger  and  succeeding  generations  will 
hold  still  less  ground  in  common.  The  manifest 
tendency  of  the  two  peoples,  everywhere,  is  to 
drift  ever  farther  away  from  each  other.  There 
is  no  single  bond  or  force  to  counteract  or  check 
this  tendency ;  there  are  ten  thousand  strong 
forces  in  ceaseless  operation  to  confirm  and  pro 
mote  it.  Assuredly,  there  is  nothing — nothing — 
in  the  conduct  and  known  disposition  of  the 
Southern  white  people  to  encourage  the  slightest 
hope  or  expectation  that  they  will  change  either 
their  conduct  or  disposition  towards  their  black 
neighbors  ;  and  assuredly  these,  on  the  other 
hand,  can  neither  compel  nor  induce  such  a 
change. 

Do  not  these  bare  assertions  faithfully  depict, 
so  far  as  they  go,  the  position  and  relations  of  the 


A   TRILEMMA.  105 

white  and  black  peoples  in  the  South  ?  And  do 
not  they  go  far  enough?  They  are  the  plain, 
unvarnished  statements  of  the  most  conspicuous 
feature  in  the  present  condition  of  our  country, 
and  their  substantial  verity  can  not  be  honestly 
denied. 

Yet,  if  they  be  true,  who  can  estimate  their 
tremendous  importance  ?  They  are  fraught  with 
so  grave  meaning,  when  fully  understood,  that  it 
is  not  strange  that  thoughtful  men,  North  and 
South,  have  been  slow  to  advance  them  or  accept 
them  ;  and  have  tried  rather  to  persuade  them 
selves  that  the  facts  are  not  as  they  appear  to  be, 
or  to  avoid  facing  them  altogether  until  now. 
They  mean  the  assured  failure  of  the  great  work 
the  American  people  have  been  engaged  in  for 
twenty  years, — the  work  of  making  American  cit 
izens  of  several  millions  of  African  people  occupy 
ing  the  same  soil  with  us.  They  mean  not  only 
that  the  Negro  question  has  not  been  settled,  but 
that  it  is  not  in  the  way  of  settlement,  and  will 
never  be  thus  settled. 

Shall  we  then  accept  this  as  the  true  statement 
of  our  condition,  and  act  on  it?  This  would 
seem  to  be  the  wise  course  ;  but,  unfortunately, 
it  is  not  the  course  that  is  being  pursued.  There 
are  some,  if  not  many,  among  us — among  our 
public  men  especially — who  cannot  or  will  not 
see  what  is  so  plainly  to  be  seen.  They  accept 
part  of  the  statement  as  true,  and  reject  the  rest ; 
or  accept  the  whole  in  substance  and  reject  the 


106  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

inevitable  conclusion  that  is  drawn  from  it.  They 
see  the  situation  as  it  is,  but  cannot  accept  the 
assertion  of  its  continuance  and  consequences. 
They  see  that  the  races  remain  wholly  separated, 
that  the  gulf  between  them  is  widening — and  yet 
hope  that  they  will  unite.  They  recognize  the 
existence  and  potent  operation  of  the  race-preju 
dice  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages,  and  yet  expect 
it  to  fade  out,  sooner  or  later,  in  the  Southern 
States  of  North  America — where  its  intensity 
and  energy  have  ever  found  their  fullest  expres 
sion. 

What  are  the  grounds  of  this  hope  and  expec 
tation  ?  Briefly  stated,  they  are  two-fold.  The 
more  familiar  ground  is  that,  under  the  favoring 
conditions  of  general  "  education"  and  "devel 
opment,"  the  negroes  will  be  brought  more 
and  more  nearly  to  the  level  of  the  white  race  ; 
that  the  prejudice  against  them  will  naturally 
subside  as  they  rise  to  that  level ;  and  that  the 
process  of  assimilation  will  be  made  effective,  and 
will  be  hastened,  by  the  knowledge  of  the  white 
people  that  the  two  races  are  hopelessly  doomed 
to  compulsory  association,  and  must  assume 
equal,  or  nearly  equal,  relations  for  the  good  of 
both.  The  less  familiar  ground,  perhaps,  is  that 
the  presence  of  a  large  mulatto  population  in  the 
South  shows  conclusively  that  the  race-prejudice 
has  not  served  to  keep  the  races  apart  hitherto, 
and  that  it  may  be  expected  to  prove  less  of  a 
barrier  in  future,  under  the  conditions  already 


A   TRILEMMA.  107 

suggested.  We  may  safely  consider  these  two 
lines  of  argument  together;  fqr  it  will  be  found 
on  investigation  that  they  are  intimately  related, 
wide  apart  as  they  appear  to  be  at  the  first  glance. 

The  force  of  the  argument  which  is  based  on 
the  presence  of  the  "  colored  "  people  in  the  South 
is  applied,  of  course,  in  the  form  of  the  conten 
tion  that  if  the  blood  itself  of  the  two  races  was 
so  far  commingled  in  the  slavery  period,  and  de 
spite  the  operation  of  the  prejudice  which  was 
then  in  full  play,  it  can  be  reasonably  expected 
that  the  most  harmonious  relations,  civil  and  so 
cial,  short  of  general  and  legalized  miscegenation, 
will  eventually  take  the  place  of  the  former  ir 
regular  and  intimate  association.  This  way  of 
reasoning  has  found  much  favor  in  certain  quar 
ters.  Let  us  consider  it  on  its  merits. 

In  the  first  place,  the  number  of  "  Mulattoes," 
strictly  classified — that  is,  the  immediate  off 
spring  of  white  and  black  parents — is  very  much 
smaller  than  is  commonly  supposed.  The  "  col 
ored  people  "  in  the  South  constitute  a  very  con 
siderable  part  of  the  population,  but  the  mulatto 
is  the  exception  among  their  number.  There  are 
likewise  fewer  quadroons  than  mulattoes,  and  the 
proportion  of  colored  persons  having  one  eighth 
or  one  sixteenth  of  negro  blood  in  their  veins 
is  relatively  smaller  still.  The  intermixture  of 
blood  between  the  mulatto  and  the  negro,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  manifested  by  the  countless  grada 
tions  of  color  which  gradually  darken  from  the 


Io8  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

hue  of  the  mulatto  to  that  of  the  black,  until  they 
are  lost  in  the  shadows  of  the  pure  negro  type, 
The  individuals  who  manifest  these  gradations 
are  of  course  correspondingly  numerous.  The 
gradations  of  hue  below  that  of  the  mulatto,  in 
other  words,  mark  the  vast  majority  of  the  "  col 
ored  "  people.  The  gradations  above  his  are  few 
in  fact,  and  those  who  exhibit  the  lighter  hues 
are  a  small  and  conspicuous  class  in  the  Southern 
States.  Small  as  is  the  number,  moreover,  of 
those  who  must  be  ranked  as  mulattoes,  quad 
roons,  etc. — that  is,  all  persons  of  and  above  the 
grade  of  mulatto — -even  that  number  is  largely 
made  up  of  the  descendants  of  parents  of  mixed 
blood,  the  strong  tendency  of  members  of  this 
class  having  always  been  to  marry  among  them 
selves.  There  are  not  a  few  of  these  lighter-col 
ored  people,  in  the  South,  who  can  trace  their 
legitimate  descent  for  several  generations.  Some 
of  them,  indeed,  were  themselves  slaveholders. 
In  some  of  the  Southern  cities  they  constitute 
a  distinct  community  of  highly  respectable  peo 
ple,  living  to  themselves  for  the  most  part,  and 
having  little  in  common  with  their  darker-skinned 
neighbors  save  the  common  heritage  of  a  reproach 
which  attaches  to  any,  even  the  slightest,  taint 
of  African  blood. 

Two  important  facts  stand  out  prominently  in 
this  view  of  the  admixture  of  blood  which  has  al 
ready  been  effected,  and  on  which  so  mech  stress 
had  been  placed.  The  first  fact  is  that  there  has 


A   TRILEMMA.  109 

been  comparatively  little  of  such  admixture  at 
the  first  step.  The  second  and  more  important 
fact  is  that  the  process  is  never  continued  beyond 
a  few  steps  farther,  and  halts  abruptly  at  the 
point  where  it  promises  to  prove  effective  by  the 
obliteration  of  the  negro  type  in  an  individual 
who  shall  still  represent  the  union  of  the  two  di 
verse  strains  of  blood.  Such  an  individual  may 
indeed  exist  in  America;  but,  if  so,  he  wisely 
holds  his  peace  as  to  his  pedigree.  The  octoroon 
is  nearly  white,  and  is  usually  attractive  in  person. 
He  is  free  to  marry  in  his  own  class,  or  below  it; 
but  he  is  as  far  from  marrying  a  white  woman  as 
was  his  blackest  ancestor.  And  so  of  the  mythical 
individual  whose  case  we  have  just  considered. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  white  blood  "  tells  "  even 
where  it  is  greatly  adulterated.  The  octoroon, 
and  mulatto  are  free  to  marry  below  their  grade, 
indeed,  but  they  are  not  prone  to  avail  them 
selves  of  this  privilege.  Shut  out  from  marriage 
or  association  with  the  whites,  in  turn  they  shut 
out  the  blacks,  and  form  what  has  now  become  a 
fixed  intermediate  class,  or  compound  race.  The 
shades  of  color  between  their  complexion  and 
black  are  not  the  result  of  marriage,  for  the  most 
part,  but  of  the  favor  accorded  in  the  slave  period 
to  the  possession  of  some  share  of  the  white  man's 
blood  and  qualities.  And,  finally,  the  birth  of  a 
mulatto,  quadroon,  octoroon,  out  of  wedlock,  is  of 
rare  occurrence  since  the  war,  and  is,  indeed,  al 
most  unknown. 


HO  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

The  process  which  once  promised  to  solve  the 
Negro  problem  eventually,  has  been  arrested 
absolutely  by  the  Negro's  emancipation.  The 
"  colored  people  "  are  increasing,  if  at  all,  only  by 
the  natural  increase  from  colored  parentage ;  the 
negroes  are  absorbing  the  darker  shades  next  to 
their  own  ;  the  current  of  fresh  white  blood  flow 
ing  into  "  colored  "  veins  has  been  stayed  ;  in 
stead  of  having  two  races  to  consider,  we  have 
practically  three,  and  this  fact  has  been  found 
already  to  have  an  important  bearing  upon  every 
phase  of  the  Negro  problem  in  the  South. 

The  argument  from  the  facts  of  miscegenation, 
as  practiced  to  some  extent  in  the  past,  has  not 
withstood  the  test  of  examination,  up  to  this 
point,  and  more  yet  may  be  said  in  evidence  of 
its  utter  invalidity.  The  intercourse  between 
the  races,  so  far  as  any  intercourse  has  taken 
place,  has  always  been  absolutely  confined  to  the 
white  man  and  negro  woman.  Regarded  as  an 
evidence  of  the  weakness  of  racial  barriers,  there 
fore,  it  is  at  once  deprived  of  half  its  force,  and 
one  more  consideration  will  deprive  it  of  the  re 
maining  half.  The  instances  of  such  intercourse 
were  not  numerous,  as  we  have  seen.  But  even 
where  intercourse  occurred,  it  had  its  sole  motive 
in  the  basest  passions  of  human  nature;  was 
wholly  of  a  criminal  character,  and  was  limited 
to  the  criminal  association.  The  offspring  of 
such  unions  was  disowned  by  one  of  its  parents, 
and  was  a  life-long  disgrace  to  the  other,  who 


A    TR I  LEMMA.  in 

was,  moreover,  contemned  as  an  inferior  by 
her  own  child.  There  has  never  been  the 
slightest  progress  toward  racial  assimilation  or 
association  on  any  other  line  than  this,  and  as 
suredly  there  is  nothing  in  this  sort  of  progress 
to  encourage  the  most  sanguine  to  look  forward 
to  the  establishment  of  more  open  and  more  le 
gitimate  relations  in  future  between  the  two,  or 
three,  races. 

Still  another  phase  of  this  general  subject  re 
quires  more  attention  than  has  been  given  to  it. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  white  blood  "  tells" 
even  when  adulterated.  The  fact  is  that  it  as 
serts  the  characteristics  of  the  type  of  race  from 
which  it  is  drawn,  wherever  and  in  whatever  de 
gree  it  is  found  to  exist.  Some  of  the  plainer  man 
ifestations  of  these  characteristics  may  be  noted. 

The  intelligence,  the  general  aptitude  for  af 
fairs  of  every  sort,  business,  political  and  other 
wise,  as  well  as  the  degree  of  culture,  of  the  "  col 
ored  "  man,  are  ever  closely  measured  by  the 
degree  of  whiteness  in  his  skin.  It  is  the  recog 
nition  of  this  fact  that  causes  the  lighter-colored 
people  to  associate  together  and  marry  among 
themselves.  It  is  an  instance  of  natural  selection 
of  one  kind,  a  striking  instance  of  the  persistence 
of  the  law  to  whose  infraction  these  people  owe 
their  very  existence.  Like  must  consort  with 
like,  however  the  likeness  is  derived.  The  bare 
fact  of  the  superiority  of  the  lighter-colored  peo 
ple  to  the  blacks,  at  any  rate,  is  generally,  if  not 


1 1 2  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARA  OH. 

universally,  recognized  by  whites,  colored,  and 
blacks  alike.  It  is  instructive  to  note,  for  exam 
ple,  how  surely,  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  colored 
men  take  the  leadership  in  all  matters  and  on 
occasions  in  which  the  colored  and  black  people 
have  common  part.  They  have  been  the  politi 
cal  leaders  of  the  race  with  which  they  are  iden 
tified  ever  since  that  race  entered  the  political 
field.  The  history  of  every  Southern  State,  since 
the  war,  affords  all  the  evidence  needed  to  sup 
port  this  assertion.  The  colored  men  came 
promptly  tq  the  front,  and  to  the  top,  at  the  out 
set  of  the  Reconstruction  Era,  as  the  white  peo 
ple  know  to  their  cost,  and  retained  their  leader 
ship  to  the  end,  despite  their  small  numbers. 
There  were  exceptional  cases,  of  course;  but 
the  rule  was  writ  large,  and  is  still  in  force.  It 
should  be  added  that  many  of  the  later  excep 
tions  were  notoriously  due  to  the  existence  of  a 
prejudice  in  the  minds  of  the  blacks  against  their 
lighter-colored  cousins ;  and  that  this  prejudice 
was  due  in  part  to  their  complexion,  and  in  part 
to  the  awakening  of  the  more  ambitious  black 
men  to  the  fact  above  mentioned,  that  the  col 
ored  men,  by  virtue  of  superior  knowledge,  ca 
pacity  and  management,  enjoyed  far  more  than 
their  numerical  share  of  political  offices,  influence 
and  rewards. 

The  only  representative  of  the  colored  popula- 
lation  who  ever  reached  a  seat  in  the  United 
States  Senate  was  nearly  white.  The  most  promi- 


A   TRILEMMA.  113 

nent  black  man  in  Congress  during  the  Recon 
struction  period  was  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts, 
and  owed  his  elevation  to  the  advantage  of  having 
received  a  complete  education  at  a  time  when  his 
black  and  colored  fellows  in  the  South  were  on 
the  lowest  plane  of  ignorance.  Other  exceptional 
cases  need  not  be  discussed  ;  it  is  enough  that 
they  are  exceptions,  and  taken  altogether  they 
scarcely  affect  the  rule.  In  the  absence  of  white 
Republican  leaders  and  of  their  ready-witted  col 
ored  lieutenants,  the  white  people  of  the  Southern 
States  would  have  found  small  difficulty  in  over 
throwing  the  Reconstruction  Governments  long 
before  they  were  overthrown  ;  if  indeed,  those 
governments  could  ever  have  been  established. 

It  is  the  statement  of  a  plain  fact,  indeed,  that 
the  hopes  of  the  Republican  politicians  of  the 
North,  for  the  maintenance  of  their  party  in  the 
South,  were  built  upon  the  "colored  "  voters,  and 
have  no  other  foundation  to  this  day.  The  fail 
ure  of  "  negro  suffrage  "  in  the  South  is  owing  to 
the  comparatively  small  number  of  colored  voters 
of  the  lighter  shades.  The  experiment  of  negro 
suffrage  would  doubtless  never  have  been  made 
with  negroes  alone.  The  most  glaring  abuse  of 
slavery — the  demoralization  and  debauching  of 
the  slaves  by  unprincipled  white  men — made  "  Re 
construction  "  possible.  The  hybrid  of  the  white 
man's  begetting  became  the  ready  instrument  of 
the  sorest  punishment  and  deepest  humiliation 
that  the  white  race,  or  any  race,  was  ever  subjected 


114  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

to, — the  rule  of  their  own  newly  emancipated 
slaves.  The  white  people  of  the  South,  at  any 
rate,  have  abundant  reason  to  regret  that  any  of 
their  number  ever  transgressed  the  natural  limits 
which  separate  the  different  orders  of  mankind. 
Like  every  other  natural  law,  the  law  that  keeps 
the  races  apart  carries  its  penalty  in  its  bosom 
in  some  form,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  it  will  vin 
dicate  itself  as  often  as  it  is  defied. 

The  race-problem,  it  is  seen,  has  been  rendered 
but  the  more  complicated  by  the  introduction  of 
the  intermediate  race.  Instead  of  proving  the 
weakness  of  the  racial  barriers,  or  tending  to  re 
move  them,  the  result  of  fusion,  so  far  as  fusion 
progressed,  has  been  to  raise  an  additional  barrier, 
and  to  bring  the  old  prejudice  into  stronger  re 
lief  than  before.  Without  going  into  this  subject 
at  any  greater  length,  certain  obvious  facts  and 
conclusions  may  be  concisely  stated. 

The  prejudice  of  the  white  man  as  manifested 
towards  the  Negro  is  manifested  towards  the  com 
bined  white-and-negro  in  no  less  degree.  The 
mulatto  inherits  the  sentiment  with  his  blood, 
and  exhibits  its  force  as  far  as  he  can,  in  his  cir 
cumstances.  The  "taint"  of  negro  blood  clings 
to  it  so  far  as  its  presence  can  be  detected  or  is 
suspected.  The  prejudice  to  which  it  is  ever  sub 
ject  is  most  aggressively  manifested  towards  the 
persons  who  are  least  tainted, — those  who  are 
nearest  in  racial  position  to  the  white  man.  The 
very  hopelessness  of  the  black's  case  wins  for 


A   TRILEMMA.  115 

him  from  the  white  man  a  measure  of  recognition 
and  of  guarded  association  which  is  denied  to  the 
almost-white  man.  If  the  negro  race  were  wholly 
supplanted  on  American  soil  by  a  race  of  mulat- 
toes,  or  even  of  octoroons,  the  race  problem  would 
be  so  far  from  approaching  a  solution  that  it 
would  be  at  least  as  perplexing  and  as  fraught 
with  present  difficulty  and  promise  of  future  trou 
ble  as  is  the  Negro  problem  of  to-day.  If  the 
Negro  shall  ever  rise,  or  be  raised,  in  the  scale  of 
humanity,  despite  the  weights  and  drawbacks 
which  nature  has  imposed  on  him,  to  the  very 
much  higher  plane  now  occupied  by  his  colored 
cousin,  or  to  any  height,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  he  will  encounter  only  the  more  pre 
judice  and  opposition  on  that  account  from  both 
the  white  man  and  the  colored  man,  with  whom 
he  will  be  brought  the  more  into  competition  and 
conflict.  And,  finally,  it  requires  to  be  said,  that  if 
all  the  negroes  and  colored  people  in  the  South 
should  be  raised,  by  any  means,  to  the  highest 
level  of  attainment  and  achievement  now  occu 
pied  by  the  most  intelligent  and  educated  indivi 
duals  of  their  race,  there  is  assuredly  nothing  in 
the  experience  of  these  individuals  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  the  present  disposition  and  conduct  of 
the  white  people  would  be  modified  in  the  least 
degree. 

If  these  statements  and  conclusions  shall  be 
accepted  as  true — and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how 
or  where  their  substantial  truth  can  be  called  into 


i  1 6  A  N  A  PPEA  L  TO  PHA  RA  OH, 

question — we  need  touch  but  lightly  on  the 
scheme  of  "educating"  and  developing"  the 
black  and  colored  people,  as  a  means  of  solving 
the  race-problem  in  America.  They  should  be 
educated  and  developed,  undoubtedly;  and  to 
the  utmost  extent  of  the  capacity  of  the  Nation 
to  promote  the  good  work.  Our  duty  is  plain  in 
this  matter,  and  is  generally  recognized.  In  any 
event  the  condition  of  the  negroes  and  colored 
people  themselves  will  be  improved  in  many 
ways  by  the  work  of  the  school-teacher,  and 
there  is  need  for  improvement.  There  is,  how 
ever,  no  apparent  ground  for  the  claim,  or  expec 
tation,  that  the  relations  of  the  races  in  the 
South  will  be  changed  for  the  better  by  the  edu 
cation  of  the  black  and  colored  race,  or  by  the 
improvement  of  their  condition  which  education 
may  be  expected  to  produce.  There  are  not  a 
few  well-educated  colored  men  in  the  South, 
and  the  number  of  black  and  colored  men  who 
have  acquired  considerable  property  by  their  skill 
and  industry  we  are  told  is  considerable.  There 
is  no  evidence  anywhere,  however,  that  the  pos 
session  of  educational  or  other  advantages  has 
ever  secured  for  any  black  or  colored  man  the 
slightest  abatement  of  the  prejudice  exhibited 
toward  his  race  in  general. 

The  always  bitter  and  sometimes  bloody 
political  contests  in  the  South,  we  must  believe, 
have  been  caused  by  the  efforts  of  intelligent  and 
educated  colored  men  to  assert  the  rights  of  their 


A   TR I  LEMMA.  117 

race,  which  efforts  have  failed  for  the  most  part 
because  of  the  ignorance  and  want  of  discipline 
of  the  mass  of  the  black  and  colored  voters.  It 
goes  without  saying  that,  in  proportion  as  they 
shall  become  better  educated,  the  negroes  will 
expect  and  demand  more  consideration  in  the 
division  of  public  offices,  and  will  be  better  pre 
pared  to  maintain  their  demands.  How  this 
will  tend  to  promote  division  on  other  than 
race  lines,  or  will  improve  the  present  relations 
between  the  several  races,  it  is  impossible  to  con 
ceive.  The  blacks  are  allowed  practically  no 
representation  now,  alike  where  they  number  but 
a  handful  and  where  they  are  in  overwhelming 
majority.  The  treatment  which  they  receive  in 
politics  is  plainly  the  result  of  an  unwillingness 
even  to  share  political  honors  and  power  with 
them  in  any  measure.  It  is  not  likely  that  the 
prejudice  against  them  will  be  at  all  subdued 
when  they  shall  claim  their  political  portion  in 
full  measure  and  shall  endeavor  to  seize  it,  with 
or  without  the  aid  of  the  general  Government.* 


*  The  differences  and  lines  between  the  parties  in  the  South 
are  deeper  than  any  questions  of  policy  or  principle  or  patron 
age.  They  are  the  differences  and  lines  between  Anglo-Saxon 
and  Ethiopian,  between  former  master  and  former  slave,  between 
aggregated  capital  and  aggregated  labor,  between  a  race  kept 
down  by  sentiment,  custom,  inheritance  and  necessity,  and  a  race 
forced  by  sentiment,  custom,  inheritance  and  necessity  to  keep  it 
down.  The  evils  will  increase  with  time.  As  the  two  races  in 
crease  they  will  crowd  each  oiher  within  their  territory,  and  the 
struggle  for  place  and  foothold  will  become  stronger  and  harder  ; 


Ii8  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

The  question  recurs,  what  single  substantial 
ground  has  he,  or  have  we,  to  expect  that  the 
Negro,  or  colored  man,  will  ever  attain,  under  any 
circumstances,  to  any  sort  of  fellowship  with  the 
white  man  which  is  now  denied  by  the  white  man 
to  both,  and  is  denied  in  large  part  to  the  Negro 
by  the  colored  man?  Does  not  the  history  of 
Hayti  teach  us  indeed  that,  even  if  the  white  man 
were  compelled  to  abandon  the  Southern  States 
altogether,  the  race-problem  would  remain  to  be 
settled  between  the  black  man  and  the  colored 
man?  Remove  one  of  the  three  races,  and  the 
other  two  will  still  be  divided.  How  then  shall 
we  expect  the  three  to  dwell  together  in  har 
mony?  And  how  shall  we  expect  the  white  man 
of  the  South,  of  all  men,  to  concede  to  both  the 
colored  man  and  the  black  man  the  right  to  rule 
over  him,  or  to  take  an  effective  part  in  their 
common  government,  which  is  denied  by  the 
Negro  to  the  white  man  in  every  place  where  the 
former  is  in  position  to  dictate  the  terms  of  their 
relationship?  It  may  indeed  be  possible  for 
such  a  state  of  things  to  come  to  pass  in  America. 
But  it  appears  to  be  impossible,  if  only  because 
it  is  contrary  to  every  teaching  and  suggestion  of 
history  and  present  experience,  and  to  the  distin 
guishing  and  most  deeply-rooted  principles  of  the 


as  the  educated  class  increases  among  the  negroes,  its  pressure 
against  the  confining,  repressive  forces  above  will  be  more  serious, 
and  the  friction  will  be  more  irritating  to  both  sides. — A.  B. 
WILLIAMS,  in  Harper's  Weekly. 


A   TRILEMMA.  119 

white  race,  as  a  race.  The  experiment  of  trying 
to  fuse  two  unlike,  unequal,  and  unwilling  races 
of  men  into  one  body  politic,  under  circumstances 
where  compulsion  was  out  of  question,  and  where 
every  innate  sentiment  of  exclusion  and  antagon 
ism  was  developed  and  strengthened  by  the  long 
continued  influences  of  the  enslavement  of  the 
one  race,  and  confirmed  and  intensified  by  the 
peculiar  events  which  terminated  that  most  un 
favorable  relation — was  certainly  unique  in  the 
recorded  history  of  nations  ;  and  was  probably 
predestined  to  failure  from  its  beginning.  Its  suc 
cess  would  still  be  doubtful,  we  are  forced  to  be 
lieve,  even  if  the  white  people  of  the  former 
Slave  States  had  entered  upon  the  novel  venture 
of  their  own  will ;  under  the  impulse  of  whatever 
strong  motive ;  with  unanimous  purpose ;  and 
under  the  most  favorable  conditions  of  time  and 
circumstance  that  could  be  imagined.  In  view 
of  the  actual  past  and  present  conditions,  the 
hope  of  any  measure  of  success  is  the  dream  of  a 
fanatic  or  a  fool. 

Having  failed  miserably  at  every  step  so  far  as 
it  has  been  tried,  fraught  with  the  assurance  of 
illimitable  evils  to  both  races,  and  barren  of 
promise  of  any  good  result  to  either  race — why 
press  the  rash  endeavor  farther,  if  we  can  find,  or 
make,  any  other  way  out  of  our  difficulties? 


VIII. 
THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION. 

PERHAPS  we  can  arrive  at  a  better  understand 
ing  of  the  real  disposition  of  the  whole  people  of 
America  towards  the  Negro,  and  of  their  proba 
ble  future  sentiment  and  behavior  towards  him, 
and  can  approach  at  the  same  time  more  nearly 
to  some  common  basis  of  agreement  among  our 
selves  with  regard  to  the  mode  of  settling  the 
problem  of  which  he  is  the  subject,  if  we  consider 
how  that  problem  was  thrust  upon  us — how,  that 
is  to  say,  the  Negro  came  to  be  in  America. 

Is  not  his  presence  here  owing  wholly  to  a  very 
ancient  and  general  prejudice  against  him  ? 

He  was  a  slave  before  the  Southern  planter 
bought  him  from  the  Northern  ship-master,  who 
brought  him  to  our  shores.  He  was  a  slave  be 
fore  he  was  bought  by  the  ship-master  and  re 
ceived  on  board  the  slave-ship.  He  was  bought 
as  a  slave,  and  brought  here  for  sale  as  a  slave, 
without  the  aid  or  invitation  of  his  late  Southern 
masters,  who,  whatever  their  subsequent  offences, 
were  certainly  not  responsible  for  the  introduc 
tion  of  negro  slavery  into  the  world  or  into  the 
United  States. 

120 


THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION.  12 1 

But  the  question  of  responsibility  for  his  sub 
jugation  aside,  be  it  remembered  that  the  Negro 
was  selected  for  his  hard  fate  from  among  all  the 
nations  and  races  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The 
slave  yoke  has  been  so  long  and  so  generally  im 
posed  on  him  that  it  suggests  a  world-wide  and 
abiding  recognition  of  something  in  his  nature  to 
invite  the  treatment  he  has  received.  We  need 
not  call  it  prejudice,  and  still  the  fact  remains 
that  many  nations  and  peoples,  agreeing  in  little 
else,  have  been  moved  by  one  idea  and  impulse 
common  to  them  all,  to  enslave  this  order  of  man. 
Why  was  he  alone  chosen  for  this  purpose,  and 
why  was  he  alone  still  held  in  chains,  in  this 
Nineteeth  century,  while  the  missionaries  of  the 
master  race  were  preaching  the  gospel  to  other 
black  men  in  the  African  jungles  ?  Was  it  be 
cause  he  was  a  negro  ;  because  he  was  a  fit  and 
approved  subject  for  slavery  ?  This  is  to  concede 
all  that  is  urged  by  those  who  have  least  regard 
for  him,  least  hope  of  him.  And  if  not  for  these 
reasons,  then  for  what  reasons  ? 

At  any  rate,  let  us  consider  his  present  position 
in  the  light  of  what  we  know  of  the  circumstances 
of  his  coming  among  us. 

We  have  seen  that  the  sentiment  which  led  to 
his  enslavement  in  America  was  not  and  is  not 
confined  to  the  white  people  of  the  South  or  of 
America.  It  is  older  than  the  Federal  Union,  or 
the  Colonies,  is  nearly  world-wide,  and  has  been 
the  cause  of  his  enslavement  everywhere.  If 


122  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHA RA  OH. 

Noah's  curse  be  not  accepted  as  the  cause  of  all 
the  black  man's  misfortunes,  the  curious  story  of 
its  fulmination  must  still  be  regarded  as  the 
legendary  explanation  of  a  historical  fact  so 
ancient  that  it  antedates  the  writing  of  the  book 
of  Genesis  itself.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  not 
disputed  that  the  Negro  was  originally  brought  to 
America  by  others  than  Americans ;  and  was 
brought  by  force,  as  a  slave,  and  to  be  a  slave. 

The  next  statement  scarcely  admits  of  serious 
challenge.  The  Negro  would  not  have  been  al 
lowed  to  land  in  America  in  the  first  instance,  nor 
later,  but  for  the  intention  to  keep  him  as  a 
slave  to  the  end. 

And  is  it  not  also  significant  that  he  should 
submit  to  his  lot  nearly  always  and  everywhere 
with  so  unquestioning  willingness,  so  patient  do 
cility,  so  feeble  protest !  Subjection  seems  to  be 
his  second  nature,  if  not  his  first ;  and  his  alone. 
He  was  brought  here  to  be  a  slave,  at  all  events, 
because  he  was  known  to  possess  the  qualities 
that  fitted  him  for  slavery — Heaven  help  him  ! 
And  the  men  who  enslaved  him,  who  wounded 
and  bound  him,  who  tore  him  from  his  miserable 
home  and  sold  him  to  the  white  man,  were  men 
of  his  own  color  and  blood  and  race. 

Deep  indeed  must  be  the  slave  instinct  in  the 
savage  even,  who  could  sink  so  low — and  stay 
down  so  long — to  permit  him  to  practice  and 
profit  by  a  degrading  traffic  in  his  own  flesh! 
The  curse  is  in  the  bone.  The  slave  trade  still 


THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION.  123 

thrives  in  Africa,  though  it  has  been  abolished 
from  every  other  land. 

The  Negro  was  brought  here  to  be  a  slave,  and 
a  slave  he  remained  for  two  hundred  years,  with 
scarce  one  effort  to  throw  off  his  yoke.  His  life 
itself  was  in  the  hands  of  his  taskmasters ;  yet  he 
lifted  no  hand  to  win  the  fruits  of  that  liberty 
which  he  saw  all  around  him  ;  and  this  very  fatal 
docility  and  stolidity  was  and  is  accounted  a  virtue 
to  him,  by  himself  and  his  friends.  Strong  indeed 
must  have  been  our,  and  his,  conception  of  the 
differences  between  us,  and  the  conviction  of  his 
inferiority,  that  permitted  him  to  remain  a  slave 
so  long  in  this  Land  of  the  Free,  under  this  gov 
ernment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people  ! 

And  yet  another  fact.  This  state  of  affairs, 
his  subjection  under  conditions  and  in  circum 
stances  that  made  the  desire  on  his  part  to  taste 
one  free  breath  of  God's  free  air  a  crime  in  our 
eyes,  would  have  continued  until  now,  and  for 
many  years  to  come,  in  all  probability,  but  for 
the  discovery  that  the  slave  thus  brought  here, 
and  held  here,  was  better  adapted  for  residence 
and  labor  in  one  part  of  the  country  than  in  an 
other,  and  his  consequent  transfer  to  the  lat 
itude  where  he  thrived  best,  and  where  his  toil 
was  most  profitable  to  his  owner.  The  conflict 
of  material  and  political  interests  arising  out  of 
his  unequal  distribution  brought  about  the  great 
conflict  of  opinion  and  arms  which  led  to  his 


124  AN  APPEAL    TO  PHARAOH. 

emancipation  as  a  stroke  of  diplomacy,  of  mili 
tary  strategy,  a  blow  at  the  power  of  his  war 
ring  master,  a  sacrifice  for  the  sake  and  salvation 
of  the  Republic  he  had  so  long  served,  and  that 
was  about  to  go  to  pieces  in  fighting  over  the 
problem  his  presence  had  raised.  His  present 
freedom  was  an  incident  of  the  war,  and  was  not 
contemplated  by  his  liberators  until  it  became 
necessary  or  advisable  for  the  sake  of  the  advan 
tage  it  promised  to  one  of  the  contending 
sections  —  the  one  which  had  no  remaining 
property-rights  vested  in  him,  and  which  lost 
nothing,  but  gained  everything,  by  giving  him 
his  liberty. 

Is  this  pushing  the  probe  too  deep  ?  Perhaps 
so,  and  it  is  not  desired  to  touch  any  nerve  un 
necessarily.  There  is  high  authority  however 
for  the  assertion  last  made  : 

I  appreciate  your  motive  when  you  suggest  the  propriety 
of  my  writing  for  the  public  something  disclaiming  all  inten 
tion  to  interfere  with  slaves  or  slavery  in  the  States  ;  but  in 
my  judgment  it  would  do  no  good.  I  have  already  done 
this  many,  many  times,  and  it  is  in  print,  and  open  to  all  who 
will  read.— MR.  LINCOLN,  to  W.  S.  SPEER,  Oct.  23,  1860. 
The  Century  Magazine,  Nov.  1887. 


I  met  on  Monday  my  Republican  associates  on  the  Com 
mittee  of  Thirteen,  and  afterwards  the  whole  committee. 
With  the  unanimous  consent  of  our  section  I  offered  three 
propositions  which  seemed  to  me  to  cover  the  ground  of  the 
suggestion  made  by  you  through  Mr.  Weed,  as  I  understood 
it.  First,  that  the  Constitution  should  never  be  altered  so  as 
to  authorize  Congress  to  abolish  or  interfere  with  slavery  in 


THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION.  125 

the  States.  This  was  accepted. — MR.  SEWARD  to  MR. 
LINCOLN,  Dec.  26,  1860.  The  Centurv  Magazine,  Nov. 
1887. 

Does  any  man  in  the  United  States  honestly 
believe  that  the  Negro  would  be  free  to  day, 
that  the  Negro  problem  would  confront  us  in  its 
present  shape,  if  the  cotton  plant  only  grew  on 
the  shores  of  the  Lakes  as  it  grows  on  the  shores 
of  the  Gulf ;  or  if  black  labor  could  have  been  as 
profitably  employed  at  the  North  as  at  the  South  ? 
We  have  indeed  drifted  far  apart  in  character  and 
disposition — we  of  the  two  sections  ;  but  what  if 
the  climate  of  the  Southern  section  extended  a  few 
degrees  nearer  to  the  Pole  ?  There  are  men  and 
women  and  children  north  of  Mason's  and  Dixon's 
line  to-day  who  are  called  "  white  slaves  "  by  their 
neighbors,  and  who  are  as  white  as  their  masters. 
What  of  these,  if  their  skins  were  black?  What 
if  the  Negro  had  fallen  into  their  place  two  hun 
dred  years  ago,  and  had  become  established  there, 
as  he  was  established  on  the  plantations  a  few 
miles  south  of  the  mine  and  manufactory  ? 

But  let  this  pass.  We  are  all  wiser  and  better 
now  than  we  were,  and  some  may  honestly 
believe  that  they  would  have  been  as  wise  and 
good  as  they  are,  had  they  lived  and  died  one  or 
two  centuries  ago. 

The  Negro  was  brought  here  to  be  and  remain 
a  slave.  That  is  the  main  fact.  Is  it  too  much 
to  say,  on  conscience,  that  if  he  had  not  come 
when  he  did,  and  as  he  did,  and  for  the  express 


126  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

purpose  for  which  he  came,  he  would  not  have 
been  allowed  to  come  at  all ;  or  to  remain  after 
he  landed  ?  Does  any  man  believe  fora  moment, 
that,  if  the  Negro  were  not  here,  and  if  it  were 
proposed  by  any  person  or  power  to  bring  him 
here  now  to  take  his  place  among  us,  to  share  our 
heritage  and  citizenship,  to  be  established  here 
on  the  footing  now  conceded  to  him — or  on  any 
other  footing  whatsoever,  leaving  slavery  out  of 
the  question — he  would  be  allowed  to  set  foot  on 
American  soil  on  any  terms? 

If  there  is  any  doubt  as  to  what  our  course  of 
conduct  would  be  in  such  an  event,  it  will  be 
solved,  perhaps,  by  a  consideration  of  the  present 
demand  for  the  lands  held  by  the  remnants  of 
the  Indian  tribes,  and  of  the  hot  and  earnest  and 
long  continued  cry  for  the  Chinese  to  be  driven 
back  to  their  own  country — a  cry,  it  may  be  said 
in  passing,  that  is  raised  mainly  by  those  who 
have  least  objection  to  the  African  remaining 
with  us,  and  who  most  loudly  clamor  for  his  full 
and  free  exercise  of  all  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  American  citizenship — at  a  safe  distance  from 
themselves.  We  are  very  much  alike,  North  and 
South,  East  and  West,  in  some  respects,  after  all.* 


*  THE  ADMINISTRATION  AND  THE  CHINESE. — Some  of  the 
Democratic  papers  persist  in  the  endeavor  to  make  party  capital 
out  of  the  Chinese  immigration  question  as  against  the  Republi 
cans.  They  would  be  wise  to  drop  it,  because  the  more  the  matter 
is  discussed  the  more  clearly  will  it  appear  that  the  Administration 
blundered  sadly  in  handling  this  subject.  The  treaty,  which  was. 


THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION.  127 

It  may  be  remarked  here  that  a  strong  and 
growing  sentiment  has  been  developed  in  the 
Northern  States  in  late  years,  which  has  found 
emphatic  expression  in  every  political  platform 
and  in  divers  other  public  deliverances,  in  favor 
of  restricting  immigration  to  this  country  from 
Europe,  for  the  avowed  reason  that  we  have 
admitted  strangers  too  freely  already,  and  are 
threatened  with  being  overwhelmed  by  a  flood  of 
foreigners,  aliens  in  thought  and  manner — a  peo- 

negotiated  after  three  years'  delay  and  submitted  to  the  Senate 
with  a  flourish,  contained  provisions  which  would  have  left  the 
door  wide  open  to  the  influx  of  Chinese.  It  prohibited  the  com 
ing  of  Chinese  laborers  to  the  United  States  during  a  period  of 
tweniy  years,  but  said  nothing  regarding  the  coming  back  of 
Chinese  laborers  who  have  left  the  United  States  with  return  cer 
tificates.  This  was  precisely  the  point  at  which  the  greatest  dan 
gers  and  abuses  arose  under  the  former  treaty.  These  certificates 
were  sold  in  large  numbers  in  China,  and  the  difficulty  of  distin 
guishing  between  Mongolians  made  their  transfer  easy.  Then, 
too,  where  a  Chinese  laborer  claimed  to  have  lost  his  certificate,  he 
was  allowed  to  enter  on  proof  that  he  had  had  one.  In  both  cases 
Chinese  perjury  was  too  much  for  American  law,  and  the  immi 
grants  were  sworn  through  in  shoals.  It  is  obvious  that  this  could 
have  gone  on  for  a  long  period  under  the  treaty  as  negotiated. 

The  Senate,  however,  made  two  amendments,  one  prohibiting 
the  retu-n  of  Chinese  laborers  who  are  not  now  in  the  United 
States,  whether  holding  certificates  under  exiting  laws  or  not  ; 
and  the  other  providing  that  no  Chinese  laborer,  of  the  class  per 
mitted  to  return  under  the  new  treaty,  viz.  :  those  having  lawful 
wives,  children  or  parents  in  the  United  States,  or  property  therein 
of  the  value  of  $1000,  or  debts  of  like  amount  due  and  pending 
settlement,  shall  be  permitted  to  enter  the  United  States  by  land 
or  sea  without  producing  to  the  proper  officer  of  the  customs  the 
return  ce-tificate  required.  In  other  words,  after  the  treaty,  as 
amended  by  the  Senate,  has  been  ratified,  even  such  Chinese  labo- 


128  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

pie  different  from  ourselves.  Yet  these  immi 
grants  are  white  people,  and  their  children  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  our  own.  Would  a  tide  of 
black  immigration  be  welcomed  to-day  in  any 
Northern  or  Western  State,  or  Territory  ?  Would 
it  have  been  permitted  in  any  recent  year, 
whether  the  immigrants  came  from  Africa  or  the 
West  Indies  or  elsewhere,  and  were  never  so 
well  educated  or  wealthy?  And  if  not,  why  not? 
Does  any  man  believe,  again,  that,  if  the 
Negroes  who  are  here  numbered  as  many  thou 
sands  only  as  they  now  number  millions, — our 

rers  as  have  left  the  country  with  certificates  will  not  be  permitted 
to  return  except  under  the  conditions  named,  and  oral  testimony 
will  not  be  accepted  in  lieu  of  a  certificate.  By  an  inadvertence, 
the  bill  pa-sed  to  put  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  in  force,  imme 
diately  up  >n  its  ra  ification,  repealed  the  former  restriction  laws 
from  the  date  of  its  passage,  wi  hout  allowing  for  the  time  it  would 
take  to  get  the  assent  of  the  Chinese  Government  to  the  Senate 
amendments  to  the  treaty.  This  error  was  at  once  detected,  and 
Mr.  Morrow,  a  Republican  member  of  the  House,  was  ready  with 
an  amendment  making  the  repealing  clause  take  effect  upon  the 
ratification  of  the  treaty.  The  Democrats  delayed  action  upon  this 
in  the  hope  of  getting  some  small  shred  of  party  capital  out  of  the 
Chinese  question,  but  it  was  finally  adopted,  and  the  bill  passed 
the  House  without  division. 

Senator  Stewart,  of  Nevada,  showed  the  other  day  that  it  was 
the  amendment  of  Mr.  Conness,  a  Republican  Senator,  to  the 
Builingame  Treaty  which  prevented  the  natuialization  of  Chinese. 
If  this  amendment  had  not  been  adop'ed,  Senator  Stewart  says 
and  no  doubt  truly,  "  the  Chinese  question  would  be  to-day  one  of 
the  most  momentous  que-tions  ever  presented  to  the  American 
people."  Once  armed  with  vote'',  the  Chinese  would  have  become 
a  powerful  element.  Politicians  would  have  truckle  1  to  them. 
Their  exclusion  would  have  been  almost  an  impossibility,  and 
their  presence  might  easily  have  become  a  National,  instead  of  a 
local,  scourge. — Editorial  New  York  Tribune,  Aug.  27,  1888. 


THE  RADICAL  SOLUTION.  129 

knowledge  of  them  and  of  the  effects  of  their 
presence  remaining  what  it  is — there  would  be 
any  question  or  hesitation  as  to  the  disposition 
presently  to  be  made  of  them  ?  If  there  were  but 
7000  of  them  in  the  country,  anywhere,  and  these 
few  had  occasioned  such  heartburnings  and 
divisions  and  conflicts  as  we  have  had  since  the 
war  only,  and  are  having  now,  and  are  certain 
to  have  in  the  near  future,  would  they  not  be 
expelled  somehow,  sent  somewhere,  anywhere, 
before  another  year  had  passed  ?  Suppose  they 
had  come  from  Mexico,  instead  of  from  Africa,  in 
the  first  instance  ;  is  there  any  question  that  the 
whole  race  would  have  recrossed  the  Rio  Grande 
before  now,  though  double  their  present  number? 

Or,  if  they  could  not  be  expelled,  would  not 
they  be  gathered  together  on  some  Reservation 
set  apart  for  them,  where  they  would  be  left  to 
themselves,  and  kept  to  themselves  for  all  time  ? 
If  it  were  practicable  now  to  collect  them  in  this 
way,  would  not  all  that  are  here  be  collected  and 
given  a  place  to  themselves? 

And  why  has  this  proposition  never  been  seri 
ously  offered  and  entertained  ?  Is  it  not  because 
the  people  of  the  United  States  would  not  con 
sent  to  surrender  any  part  of  their  territory  to  be 
devoted  to  such  purpose, — the  exclusive  and  per 
manent  occupation  of  the  Negro  and  colored 
population  ?  Would  not  the  people  of  any  State, 
or  Territory,  however  few  in  number,  or  remote 
from  the  centers  of  population,  resent  the  prop- 


13°  AN  APPEAL    TO  PHARAOtt. 

osition,  if  made  with  regard  to  the  soil  they  oc 
cupy,  and  resist  it  by  every  means  in  their 
power?  Would  not  the  presence  of  the  race  in 
such  selected  Territory  be  enough  to  drive  out 
the  last  white  settler;  and  would  not  the  rapid 
increase  of  the  race  within  such  limits  be  viewed 
with  anxiety  for  its  future  results,  by  the  whole 
nation?  Or,  finally,  if  the  Negro  were  now  con 
fined  to  one  Southern  State,  our  knowledge  and 
experience  of  him  remaining  the  same,  would 
any  other  Southern  State  invite  his  presence, 
or  tolerate  it,  if  his  coming  were  conditioned  upon 
full  and  free  citizenship  to  be  accorded  to  him  ?  or 
on  any  other  terms  ?  Would  any  Northern  State  ? 

Instead  of  being  confined  to  one  State,  or  Ter 
ritory,  or  Reservation,  the  race  is  scattered 
throughout  nearly  half  the  Union.  Instead  of 
7000,  they  number  7,000,000  ;  and  are  increasing 
rapidly.  We  cannot  assign  them  a  separate  place 
among  us.  The  seven  millions  will  become 
seventy  millions  in  a  very  few  more  decades,  if 
their  former  rate  of  increase  shall  be  maintained. 
The  problem  begins  to  press  urgently  for  a 
solution. 

The  removal  of  the  Negro  from  our  country 
to  his  own  country — from  America  to  Africa — 
alone  will  solve  it.  Let  him  go  in  peace,  if  he 
will,  bearing  with  him  and  followed  by  such 
substantial  evidences  of  our  kindly  regard  and 
brotherly  love  as  will  atone  for  the  manner  of 
his  coming.  But,  in  any  event,  let  him  go ! 


IX. 

RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS. 

"  IT  is  desirable  enough  to  get  rid  of  the 
Negro  ;  we  can  all  agree  to  that  proposition," 
will  it  be  said  ?  "  But  it  is  impracticable." 

Ah,  if  we  were  but  so  agreed  ;  if  "  impractica 
bility  "  were  the  only  objection  !  Grant  all  the 
rest,  or  the  material  substance  of  it,  and  the  arith 
metic  will  serve  us  where  the  Constitution  and 
the  sword  have  alike  failed.  If  we  can  only  agree 
that  the  races  should  be  separated — that  the 
Negro  should  be  removed  from  America,  if  practi 
cable — these  pages  have  not  been  written  in  vain. 
There  will  be  then  a  plainer  course  ahead  of  us 
than  we  have  ever  had  before,  on  this  question, 
or  any  other  of  approximate  importance. 

"  But,  seven  millions  of  people  !  Remove  all 
these  !  It  is  the  extreme  of  folly  and  extrava 
gance  to  offer  such  a  proposition  !  "  Let  us  see. 

The  question  now  is  one  of  ways  and  means,  of 
practicability  only,  and  we  may  deal  with  it  ac 
cordingly.  Figures  express  no  feeling  ;  but  let 
not  their  use  in  this  instance  be  construed  as  an 
evidence  of  unfeelingness. 

Take  the  proposition  in  its  most  formidable 
shape — the  exportation  in  a  few  years,  of  the 
131 


13 2  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

whole  black  and  colored  population  of  the  United 
States.  Even  this  is  not  impracticable. 

Going  back  to  the  year  1880,  for  the  sake  of 
the  convenience  and  accuracy  of  the  United  States 
Census  returns  of  that  year,  and  making  allowance 
for  the  subsequent  lapse  of  time,  where  neces 
sary,  we  have  a  sound  basis  of  calculation.  Ac 
cording  to  that  census  there  were  present  in  the 
United  States  and  Territories  in  the  year  named, 
6,580,793  "  persons  of  color,"  all  of  whom  we  may 
regard  as  "  negroes "  for  the  present  purpose. 
The  number  of  "  persons  of  foreign  birth  "  in  the 
same  territory  at  the  same  period,  was  6,679,943. 

That  is  to  say:  If  only  the  vessels  that  were 
engaged  in  bringing  these  foreigners  to  our 
shores,  had  carried  back  with  them  to  Africa  on 
their  return  trips  as  many  negroes  as  they  brought 
immigrants  on  the  voyage  hither,  not  a  single 
black  or  colored  man,  woman,  or  child  would  have 
been  left  in  the  country  in  1880,  and  there  would 
still  have  been  a  clear  gain  of  100,000  persons 
added  to  the  population.  Yet  the  transportation, 
distribution,  and  absorption  of  these  millions  of 
immigrants  was  a  mere  incident  in  our  national 
life,  most  of  them  having  been  landed  in  one  or 
two  ports  and  forwarded  to  their  destination  in 
the  interior  without  interrupting  our  everyday 
business,  and  almost  without  attracting  passing 
notice. 

Nor  is  this  the  most  striking  example  of  the 
ease  with  which  the  transportation  of  vast  num- 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  133 

bers  of  people  can  be  effected.  Senator  Morrill, 
of  Vermont,  stated  in  the  course  of  a  speech  de 
livered  in  the  Senate  in  the  winter  of  1887-88, 
that  four-and-a-half  millions  of  immigrants  were 
brought  into  the  United  States  in  the  seven  years 
following  1880  ;  and  it  is  assumed  that  he  had  au 
thority  for  his  statement.  With  no  larger  fleet, 
therefore,  than  is  engaged  in  the  immigration 
business  on  the  North  Atlantic  Coast,  we  could 
have  sent  away  nearly  three-fourths  of  our  col 
ored  population  in  the  period  indicated,  or  could 
send  away  all  of  them  in  the  course  of  one  decade. 
But  we  need  not  consider  the  movement  on  so 
grand  a  scale.  Such  a  movement  would  not  be 
desirable,  for  many  reasons  not  necessary  to  be 
suggested  to  the  thoughtful  reader.  The  problem 
does  not  call,  fortunately,  for  so  violent  a  mode 
of  solution.  A  slower  method  would  be  better  on 
all  accounts,  provided  only  that  it  be  sure  of  the 
ultimate  result.  What  is  desired  is  that  the  Negro 
shall  be  transported  to  his  own  land  without 
forcing  him  to  go,  without  injury  to  himself,  and 
without  injury  or  undue  cost  to  the  people  whom 
he  leaves  behind,  and  who  must  bear  the  expense 
of  his  removal.  Every  right  principle,  as  well  as 
consideration  for  ourselves,  which  is  a  sufficient 
motive  in  itself,  requires  that  we  shall  deal  justly 
and  kindly  with  him  when  we  would  have  him 
leave  our  land.  He  will  leave  behind  him  the 
fruits  of  two  centuries'  labor.  He  should  not  be 
sent  forth  against  his  will,  or  weeping,  or  empty- 


134  AJV  APPEAL  TO  PHA&AOtt. 

handed.  It  will  be  a  solemn  leave-taking  at  best, 
when  it  comes  to  pass,  and  we  begin  to  reflect  on 
all  that  preceded  it.  Let  not  our  last  act  in  the 
tragedy  of  errors,  the  act  which  is  to  redeem  in 
part  those  that  have  gone  before  it,  leave  material 
for  additional  regret  and  reproach  to  us  who  shall 
stand  on  the  shore  and  see  the  ship  that  bears  him 
away  sink  below  the  line  of  the  eastern  horizon — 
at  the  point  where  the  slave-ship  loomed  up  dark 
and  ominous  before  the  gaze  of  our  ancestors. 

It  is  as  little  as  we  can  do  in  sending  him  away 
from  the  sight  of  the  snowy  cottonfields  and  of 
the  smoky  cotton-factories,  to  send  him  with 
some  part  of  his  over-due  wages  in  his  pocket,  or 
in  the  shape  of  provisions  and  tools  to  enable 
him  to  make  a  home  in  the  home-land  from  which 
we  beguiled  or  wrested  him  away. 

Go  he  should,  undoubtedly,  and  go  he  will  as 
suredly,  sooner  or  later  ;  but  he  should  be  allowed 
to  go  at  his  leisure  and  at  his  pleasure,  if  only  he 
will  go  in  sufficient  numbers  to  make  sure  that 
the  natural  increase  of  those  whom  he  leaves 
behind  shall  not  make  the  process  perpetual,  and 
futile  for  its  purpose. 

Calculations  as  to  the  number  of  those  who 
should  go  in  a  given  time  so  as  to  effect  the  de 
sired  result  may  be  so  varied  and  multiplied  as  to 
fill  a  book.  Let  us  avoid  this  unnecessary  labor, 
which  everyone  who  is  so  minded  can  perform 
for  himself.  One  example  of  such  calculations  is 
sufficient  to  indicate  how  the  desired  exodus  can 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  135 

be  acomplished  in  an  easy  and  kindly  way,  and 
at  small  expense  when  we  consider  the  impor 
tance  of  the  object  to  be  obtained. 

Time  itself  can  be  made  a  potent  factor  to  aid 
us  in  our  task,  if  we  take  advantage  of  time's  cer 
tain  operation.  Is  it  not  apparent,  for  instance, 
that,  if  we  were  to  set  ourselves  to  work  patiently 
and  surely  to  remove  in  forty  years  all  of  the 
negroes  who  are  now  under  the  age  of  forty 
years,  the  rest  will  nearly  all  have  passed,  in  the 
same  period,  over  to  the  Dark  Continent  that  lies 
so  much  nearer  to  our  shores  than  Africa,  and 
that  without  labor  or  cost  to  us  ?  We  would,  then, 
have  to  provide  for  the  emigration  of  those  only 
who  are  now  under  forty  and  of  those  who  shall 
be  born  in  the  next  forty  years,  in  order  to  accom 
plish  our  purpose.  Our  task  would  be  reduced 
by  over  3,000,000  emigrants  in  any  event,  what 
ever  the  number  to  be  transported  might  become 
by  reason  of  the  natural  and  net  increase  of  those 
who  remained  in  waiting. 

But  neither  would  it  be  necessary  to  undertake 
the  removal  of  half  of  the  race,  with  the  increase 
in  forty  years.  It  is  evident  that  if  we  should 
remove  the  increase  only,  the  children  who  shall  be 
born  in  the  next  fifty  years,  all  the  others  will 
disappear  in  the  course  of  a  little  more  than  that 
time.  The  year  2000,  in  any  event,  would  find 
not  a  single  black  man,  woman  or  child  on  these 
shores. 

The  problem,  however,  can  be  still  further  sim- 


I3  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

plified,  since  it  is  practicable  to  prevent  the  in 
crease  in  part,  instead  of  trying  to  keep  pace 
with  it.  The  removal  of  the  maternal  element 
alone  will  effect  this  object. 

For,  if  we  were  to  induce  the  emigration,  year 
by  year,  for  fifty  years,  of  every  marriageable 
woman  of  the  colored  population  who  should  at 
tain  the  age  of  twenty-five  years,  for  example, 
there  would  be,  at  the  end  of  fifty  years,  or  be 
fore,  a  cessation  of  the  increase  of  the  race  in 
America ;  since  the  female  children  of  all  the 
women  over  twenty-five  years  of  age  would  reach 
the  emigration-age  during  the  indicated  period, 
as  well  as  the  children  of  those  who  were  of  and 
tinder  the  age  of  twenty-five  years. 

It  would  not  be  necessary,  however,  to  adopt 
even  so  sweeping  a  measure  as  this.  The  problem 
would  be  greatly  simplified  of  course,  by  adopt 
ing  some  such  scheme  and  fixing  any  age,  be 
tween  twenty  and  thirty  years  preferably,  be 
yond  which  no  colored  woman  should  be  allowed 
to  remain  in  America.  But  this  arbitrary  and 
cruel  way  of  dealing  is  not  to  be  thought  of. 
Our  right  course  lies  between  the  two  courses  we 
have  considered,  and  should  be  devised  with  a 
reference  to  the  voluntary  and  steady  emigration 
of  the  active  maternal  element  in  such  numbers 
as  to  insure  a  constant  lowering  of  the  birth-rate, 
until  it  should  cease  altogether.  Longer  time 
would  be  required,  but  this  would  not  be  objec 
tionable  since  it  would  permit  the  process  to  be 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  137 

carried  on  by  so  easy  degrees  as  to  enable  us  to 
provide  for  the  emigrants  properly,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  permit  the  readjustment  of  affairs 
and  relations  in  the  South,  and  in  the  whole 
country,  that  would  be  rendered  necessary  by  the 
loss  of  so  large  a  body  of  laborers,  not  to  say 
citizens. 

If  we  are  required  to  suggest  what  number 
should  be  exported  annually,  the  answer  is  that 
it  ought  to  be  large  enough  to  remove  the  whole 
maternal  element  in  forty  or  fifty  years,  or  in  as 
much  longer  or  shorter  period  as  might  prove  to 
be  practicable  and  consistent  with  the  general 
welfare  of  both  races. 

The  total  number  of  "colored  females  "  in  the 
United  States  in  1880,  who  were  between  the 
ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-five,  inclusive,  was 
1,327,718.  The  number  of  colored  females  under 
one  year  of  age  at  that  time  was  115,468,  and  the 
number  of  deaths  of  the  same  class  reported  for 
the  census  year  was  14,165  ;  indicating  a  total  of 
births  of  females  amounting  to  129,633,  or  130,000 
in  round  numbers.*  By  doubling  the  annual 
birth-rate  of  females  (  130,000),  we  find  again  that 
the  total  number  of  births  annually  is  260,000, 
which  affords  a  sufficiently  close  approximation  to 

*  The  total  number  of  deaths  of  colored  females  under  the  age 
of  eighteen  years  was  about  30,000  annually,  leaving  about  100,000 
as  the  average  annual  contribu  ion  of  the  colored  race  to  the  pos 
sible  child-bearing  element  of  the  population  of  the  United  States. 
All  these  100,000  however.it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say,  do  not 
become  mothers. 


I38  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

the  whole  number  of  actual  child-bearing  colored 
females  in  any  year,  and  shows  them  to  constitute 
about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number  of 
colored  females  between  eighteen  and  forty-five 
years,  which  may  be  assumed  as  the  practical 
limits  of  the  age  of  maternity. 

Unfortunately,  the  next  calculation  must  be 
made  very  much  in  the  dark.  It  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  from  the  census  the  number  of  colored 
persons  of  any  given  age.  A  glance  at  the  tables 
showing  the  number  of  colored  females  at  each 
age  between  18  and  45,  for  example,  will  discover 
the  utter  untrustworthiness  of  the  returns  on 
this  point.  Very  few  of  the  colored  people  knew 
their  ages  at  that  time,  in  fact ;  and  the  guessing 
of  the  enumerators  and  of  those  upon  whom 
they  were  compelled  to  rely  for  information,  is 
plainly  manifested  by  the  marked  tendency  to 
fix  on  the  popular  age  of  18  for  the  younger 
women,  and  on  the  five  year  periods,  from  twenty 
upward,  for  those  of  maturer  years.  The  number 
reported  as  being  1 8  years  of  age  was  80,492  ;  at  the 
next  stage,  19  years,  it  fell  off  about  23,000;  and 
at  20,  a  good  round  age  to  guess  at,  it  rose  sud 
denly  to  97,095,  falling  off  at  the  next  step  again 
to  55,502.  At  27  years  the  number  was  25,622; 
at  30  it  was  107,551  ;  at  31  it  was  14,994.  At  39 
the  number  was  18,194;  at  40 'it  was  96,287;  at 
41  it  was  8,985.  At  44  it  was  12,675,  and  at  45  it 
was  56,487.  It  is  plain  that  no  reliance  can  be 
placed  on  the  figures  for  any  single  group,  and 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  139 

we  must  therefore  resort  to  estimate,  with  such 
assistance  as  can  be  derived  from  other  sources, 
for  an  approximate  distribution  according  to 
age.* 

The  average  number  at  each  age  from  18  to 
45,  obtained  by  dividing  the  total,  1,327,718,  by 
the  number  of  years  (28)  in  the  series,  is  47,718. 
The  tables  for  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  where 
it  may  be  supposed  that  the  records  as  to  age 
are  as  nearly  correct  as  can  be  obtained  in  the 
United  States,  show  that  the  number  of  na 
tive  femalesf  of  the  age  of  18  in  that  State  is 
about  double  the  number  of  those  who  had  at 
tained  the  age  of  45,  and  all  the  other  New  Eng 
land  States  give  the  same  proportion  very  nearly. 
If  we  may  apply  this  proportion  then,  in  the  ab 
sence  of  a  surer  guide,  to  the  colored  population, 
it  will  indicate  that  the  average  already  obtained 
should  be  so  redistributed  as  to  give  about  63,624 
colored  females  of  the  age  of  18  to  31,  812  of  the 
age  of  45.  The  average  number  for  each  of  the 
ten  years  from  20  to  29,  both  inclusive,  again,  as 
shown  by  the  census,  is  61,716,  which  goes  far  to 
confirm  the  result  otherwise  obtained.  These 
are  estimates  only,  of  course,  but  we  have 


*  The  same  variations,  though  in  less  degree,  are  exhibited  in  the 
general  tables  for  white  females,  so  that  we  can  derive  no  guid 
ance  from  that  source. 

f  The  returns  of  the  number  of  foreign-born  females,  at  the  dif 
ferent  ages,  show  as  marked  variations  as  those  which  have  been 
noted  in  the  returns  for  colored  females. 


140  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

nothing  more  definite  to  depend  on.  If,  then, 
we  assume  62,000,  in  round  numbers,  to  rep 
resent  the  number  of  colored  females  at  the  age 
of  twenty,  we  shall  not  perhaps  be  very  far  wrong, 
and  can  proceed  with  more  or  less  confidence. 

The  proportion  of  actual  child-bearing  colored 
females,  as  we  have  seen,  is  about  twenty  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  potential  maternal  element, 
between  the  ages  of  1 8  and  45  inclusive.  Apply 
ing  this  proportion  to  the  ages  from  20  to  29  in 
clusive,  we  find  the  number  of  child-bearing  col 
ored  females  of  the  age  of  20  to  be  not  over 
12,500,  the  average  number  for  each  of  the  suc 
ceeding  ages,  to  and  including  29,  being  some 
what  less. 

The  significance  of  these  figures  appears  when 
we  reflect  that  they  prove,  so  far  as  they  prove 
anything,  that  the  annual  emigration  of  12,500 
persons  of  the  indicated  class  of  the  colored  popu 
lation  (child-bearing  females  of  the  age  of  20 
years),  would  remove  the  greater  part  of  the  ma 
ternal  element  of  the  colored  race  in  forty  years, 
leaving  the  rest  to  be  removed  in  smaller  de 
tachments,  after  the  end  of  that  period.  It  is  not 
now  requisite  to  go  into  the  calculation  very 
closely,  or  to  indicate  every  qualification  and 
allowance  that  must  be  made.  The  broad  view 
and  round  numbers,  will  serve  the  present  purpose. 
The  broad  view  is  that  in  20  years  250,000  colored 
females,  constituting  the  active  maternal  element 
of  their  race,  will  have  been  removed  from  the 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  141 

United  States,  and  that  all  their  children  born 
during  that  period,  perhaps  750,000,  will  have 
been  born  in  another  land.  After  the  2Oth  year 
of  the  operation  of  such  a  process,  it  is  evident 
that  the  number  of  the  indicated  class  to  be  re 
moved  would  be  suddenly  and  materially  dimin 
ished,  and  would  fall  off  steadily  until  exhausted 
wholly.  For,  all  the  colored  female  children  who 
were  of  the  age  of  one  year  and  under  at  the 
time  the  movement  began,  would  then  have 
reached  the  age  of  20  years,  and  the  succeeding 
generations  would  be  reduced  year  by  year,  by 
the  whole  number  of  children  born  to  parents 
who  had  emigrated  in  the  twenty-year  period. 

To  put  it  another  way:  In  the  2ist  year  suc 
ceeding  the  beginning  of  the  emigration  move 
ment,  the  number  of  young  women  who  would 
reach  the  age  of  20  would  come  short  of  the 
62,000  annually  maintained  up  to  that  time  by 
just  the  number  of  surviving  daughters  of  the 
12,500  young  women  who  had  emigrated  21  years 
before.  In  the  22d  year  of  the  movement,  the 
number  would  be  diminished  by  the  surviving 
daughters  of  25,000  mothers,  and  so  on  with  each 
year  until  the  4ist,  when  the  number  of  young 
women  who  would  reach  the  age  of  20  would  be  di 
minished  by  the  number  of  surviving  daughters  of 
the  250,000 mothers  who  had  emigrated  in  the  first 
period  of  twenty  years.  In  the  meanwhile,  it 
must  be  remembered,  another  effect  of  the  move 
ment  will  have  become  manifest.  After  the  2ist 


142  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

year,  all  the  child-bearing  women  who  were  over 
20  when  the  movement  began  will  have  passed 
the  age  of  40  years,  and  there  will  be  none  to 
take  their  place  ;  since,  by  the  theory,  all  ac 
cessions  to  their  class  were  removed  as  fast  as 
they  reached  20.  The  only  accessions  to  the 
active  maternal  element  of  the  colored  popula 
tion  then,  after  the  2ist  year  of  the  movement, 
would  be  the  children  of  women  who  were  over 
20  when  the  movement  began,  and  these  children 
would  be  removed  in  turn  in  another  period  of 
20  years  ;  and  in  steadily  diminishing  numbers 
each  year.  The  children  of  women  over  40  need 
not  be  taken  into  account. 

But  we  need  not  follow  this  line  of  suggestion 
farther.  It  has  led  us  apparently  to  one  safe  and 
satisfactory  conclusion — that  the  annual  emigra 
tion  of  only  12,500  child-bearing  colored  women 
will  remove  the  maternal  element  of  the  colored 
population  within  fifty  years, — and  we  may  now 
consider  how  the  knowledge  thus  acquired  can 
be  applied  in  practice. 

It  would  not  be  practicable  to  induce  the  emi 
gration  of  all  child-bearing  women  of  any  particular 
age,  for  forty  years  or  in  any  one  year.  We  must 
dismiss  the  idea  of  holding  to  the  one-age  limit. 
This  will  not  materially  affect  the  foregoing  cal 
culations,  however,  as  is  made  manifest  when  we 
reflect  that  the  emigration  of  12,500  women  of 
the  maternal  class,  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and 
thirty,  for  twenty  years,  would,  in  any  event,  lessen 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS  143 

by  250,000  the  number  who  would  attain  the  age 
of  forty  years  in  this  country,  and  would  remove 
that  number  as  surely  as  though  they  had  all  been 
removed  upon  entering  the  age  of  twenty  years. 
The  effect  upon  the  movement,  after  the  twenty- 
first  year,  would  be  somewhat  modified,  of  course, 
but  the  final  complete  result  would  seem  to  be 
postponed  about  ten  years  only  at  the  most.  It 
ought  not  to  be  difficult  to  induce  the  annual 
emigration  of  12,500  women  of  the  ten  ages  be 
tween  twenty  and  thirty,  and  we  may  probably 
accept  that  feature  of  the  scheme  as  practicable. 
The  number  of  emigrants  remaining  the  same, 
any  further  extension  of  the  limits  in  respect  of 
age  would  result,  of  course,  in  extending  by  so 
much,  or  more,  the  time  required  for  the  accom 
plishment  of  the  ultimate  purpose.  For  every 
reason  it  would  be  well  to  keep  these  limits  as  re 
stricted  as  practicable,  and  the  reasons  for  keep 
ing  the  maximum  age  at  or  even  below  thirty  are 
too  manifest  to  require  to  be  stated.  One  such 
reason  however  should  be  mentioned. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  the  scheme  here  pro 
posed  is  the  emigration  of  actual  child-bearing 
women.  This  means,  of  course,  married  women 
who  have  become  mothers  already.  It  would  be 
desirable  then  to  effect  their  removal  as  soon  as 
possible  after  they  enter  the  maternal  class,  rather 
than  to  postpone  it  until  they  should  be  cum 
bered  with  a  number  of  young  children  who  would 
greatly  multiply  the  difficulties,  expenses  and 


144  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

risks  of  their  emigrant  parents,  if  they  did  not 
deter  many  families  from  emigrating  at  all. 

The  scheme  necessarily  includes  also,  it  is 
seen,  the  emigration  of  the  husbands  of  the  women 
under  consideration.  These  will  double  the  num 
ber  of  emigrants  at  once,  and  it  is  therefore  the 
more  necessary  to  restrict  the  number  of  persons 
to  be  removed,  both  for  their  own  sake,  and  for 
the  sake  of  the  economy  thus  insured.  It  is 
plain  that  the  emigrant  parents  should,  for  every 
reason,  be  induced  to  go  as  soon  as  practicable 
after  they  become  parents. 

Another  matter  requires  to  be  mentioned  be 
fore  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject.  The  num 
ber  of  adult  persons  proposed  to  be  removed 
annually  has  been  increased,  at  one  bound,  from 
12,500  to  25,000.  This  number,  according  to  the 
calculations  based  upon  the  Tenth  Census, 
should  be  sufficient  to  solve  the  negro  problem> 
finally,  in  fifty  years.  We  cannot  rest  on  these 
figures,  however.  If  the  scheme  should  be 
adopted  and  appointed  to  go  into  effect  with  the 
opening  of  the  year  1890,  for  instance,  the  col 
ored  population  in  the  United  States  will  have 
increased,  at  the  normal  rate,  by  twenty-five  per 
cent.  The  25,000  must  be  increased  in  that  pro 
portion.  Allowance  should  also  be  made  for  pos 
sible  errors  in  the  estimates  presented,  and  such 
allowance  must  be  made  on  the  safe  side.  Pro 
vision  also  would  have  to  be  made  for  the  emi 
grant  children.  It  is  apparently  necessary  to 
base  our  calculations  as  to  the  number  of  emi- 


RECKONINGS  OF  NUMBERS.  145 

grants  whose  removal  annually  must  be  provided 
for  in  1890,  and  for  twenty  years  thereafter,  upon 
a  total  represented  by  50,000  adult  persons.* 
The  number  may  be  less  if  we  begin  the  work  of 
removal  in  1890.  It  cannot  well  be  more  in  that 
year;  but  it  may  be  accepted  as  a  certainty  that 
it  will  never  be  so  small  in  any  subsequent  cen 
sus  year.  Whatever  the  proportions  of  the  task 
may  be  now,  they  will  be  more  than  doubled  in 
the  next  forty  years.  Our  children  and  the  chil 
dren  of  this  peculiar  people,  who  shall  grow  up 
together  in  the  interval,  will  have  ample  reason, 
it  is  feared,  to  curse  our  procrastination  and  sel 
fish  folly,  if  we  hand  the  inevitable  and  magni 
fied  undertaking  down  to  them,  as  it  has  been 
handed  down  to  us. 

The  number  of  the  colored  population  in  the 
United  States  in  1790  was  700,000.  In  1860  it 
was  4,000,000.  In  1890  it  will  be  over  7,000,000. 
These  figures  present  argument  enough  for  im, 
mediate  action,  on  some  scale.  If  50,000  emi 
grants  annually  will  not  meet  the  requirements 
of  our  task,  we  should  not  longer  delay  going  to 
work.  If  that  estimate  is  excessive,  so  much  the 
better.  It  can  be  easily  reduced  if  necessary. 
In  the  meanwhile  we  may  use  it  as  the  basis  of 
further  estimates  which  will  give  us  an  approxi 
mate  and  safe  idea,  at  least,  of  what  is  before  us. 

*  This  number  will  not  appear  to  be  excessive  when  it  is  remem 
bered  that  from  30,000  to  60,000  negroes  were  taken  yearly  from 
Africa  to  Cuba  by  vessels  from  the  single  port  of  New  York, as 
late  as  1855-60. — Vice-President  Wilson  :  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the 
Slave  Trade  in  America,"  Vol.  2.,  p.  618, 


X. 

RECKONINGS  OF  COST. 

The  next  branch  of  the  subject  to  be  considered 
is  the  cost,  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  of 
carrying  into  effect  the  proposed  movement  upon 
the  basis  here  suggested,  in  the  absence  of  any 
other.  This  cost  would  comprise  : 

1.  The  actual   expenditure    required   for    the 
transportation  of  the  emigrants  from  their  homes 
to  their  destination. 

2.  The  expenditure  required  for  their  mainten 
ance  for  a  fixed  period  after  colonization. 

3.  To  these  items  should  be  added  the  proba 
ble  cost  of  the  support,  in   some  degree  of  com 
fort,  at  least,  of   the  aged    or  decrepit  relatives 
of  some  of  the  emigrants  who  are  dependent  on 
them,  and  who  must   be  either  sent   away   with 
them  or  provided  for  in  their  absence. 

What  is  the  average  cost  of  the  transportation 
of  immigrants  from  their  former  homes  to  their 
new  homes  in  this  country  is  not  known  to  the 
writer.  If  we  say  $50  a  head,  which  is  a  liberal 
estimate,  and  confine  the  calculation  to  the  arri 
vals  during  the  last  seven  years  (1880-87)  the 
average  cost  per  annum  for  the  transportation  of 
these  4,500,000  was  about  $32,000,000.  At  which 

146 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  147 

rate,  the  whole  colored  population  could  be  trans 
ported  to  Africa  in  ten  years,  at  a  total  cost  of 
$320,000,000.  And  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  paid,  without  feeling  the  expenditure, 
and  while  paying  off  the  war  debt,  principal  and 
interest,  at  the  same  time,  and  while  trying  to 
spend  a  rapidly-accumulating  "  surplus  "  besides, 
the  sum  of  about  $800,000,000  for  pensions  alone 
between  the  years  1861  and  1887.  This  sum 
would  have  sufficed  to  send  all  the  negroes  on 
this  continent  to  Africa  and  bring  them  back 
again,  since  we  began  to  fight  about  them. 

The  calculation  admits  of  many  striking  varia 
tions,  but  one  more  statement  will  be  enough. 
An  expenditure  of  $32,000,000  a  year  for  ten 
years,  as  we  have  seen,  would  serve  to  transport 
the  whole  black  and  colored  population  of  this 
country  to  Africa.  The  internal  revenue  tax  on 
whiskey  and  tobacco  alone  has  yielded  nearly  four 
times  that  amount  annually  in  recent  years.  The 
cost  of  simply  transporting  the  negroes  from 
these  shores  to  Africa  would  not  average,  per 
haps,  more  than  $25  a  head.*  On  this  basis  the 
revenue  from  whiskey  and  tobacco  for  18  months 
would  cover  the  whole  transportation-expense  of 
removing  the  whole  race  ! 

*  Since  the  incorporation  of  the  Central  and  South  American 
Emigration  Society.  .  .  .  shipping  firms  in  nearly  all  the  Atlantic 
coast  ports  have  made  propositions  to  the  Association  to  furnish 
transportation.  .  .  .  The  figures  for  transportation  are  given  at 
from  $10  to  $15. — Kansas  City  correspondence  of  the  Chicago 
Tribune,  January  31,  1888. 


148  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

On  the  second  point,  the  cost  of  the  provision 
to  be  made  for  the  colonized  emigrants,  there  is 
the  widest  latitude  for  varying  the  estimates. 
Every  such  estimate,  however,  should  proceed 
from  the  basis  of  a  sum  per  capita,  sufficient  to 
ensure  the  emigrant  a  certain  support  for  one 
year  at  least  after  arriving  at  his  destination. 
"  Support  "  means,  of  course,  a  house,  agricultural 
implements,  or  other  tools,  clothing,  shoes,  a  cer 
tain  supply  of  food,  provision  for  adequate  medi 
cal  attendance — everything,  in  short,  that  would 
be  required  to  establish  a  colony  of  poor  and  de 
pendent  people  upon  a  foundation  that  would 
enable  them  to  become  self-supporting  at  the  end 
of  a  year.  The  poorer  negroes  would  most  de 
sire  to  leave,  and  should  be  the  first  to  be  accorded 
the  opportunity.  It  is  our  fault  that  they  have 
remained  poor,  while  enriching  every  part  of  our 
country,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  their  labor. 
As  a  nation,  we  owe  the  living  representatives  of 
their  race  many  years'  wages,  and  it  would  be 
little  for  us  to  pay  some  small  part  of  our  great 
debt  to  those  whom  we  would  otherwise  send 
away  utterly  empty-handed.  Something,  at 
least,  is  due  to  conscience  in  dealing  with  the 
negroes.  They  can  do  little  for  themselves. 
They  have  little  or  nothing  to  carry  with  them 
in  the  way  of  household  goods.  There  will  be  no 
auctions  when  they  leave.  Their  cabins  are  well 
nigh  bare.  There  is  not  much  that  they  own 
which  they  cannot  afford  to  throw  away  or 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST,  149 

abandon.  For  vast  numbers  of  them,  a  few 
blankets  and  pots  and  pans  would  furnish  a  hut 
on  the  Congo  very  nearly  as  well  as  the  cabin 
they  would  leave  behind  on  the  banks  of  our  own 
rivers,  or  on  the  side  of  one  of  our  highways  in 
town  or  country.  They  are  more  likely  to  be 
enlarged  than  diminished  in  the  new  venture,  as 
to  household  belongings. 

They  will  require,  at  least  they  have  required, 
but  little  in  the  way  of  clothing  and  food.  Their 
fare  is  but  little  varied,  even  when  and  where  it 
is  most  abundant.  From  childhood  to  old  age 
they  have  been  accustomed  to  few  luxuries,  save 
such  as  have  fallen  to  them  from  their  masters' 
table,  when  they  waited  at  his  elbow.  The  slave's 
regular  weekly  ration, for  a  working  "  hand,"  was 
a  peck  of  corn  meal,  three,  four,  or  five  pounds 
of  bacon,  a  pint  of  molasses,  and  perhaps  sugar, 
salt,  rice,  and  coffee  at  times.  It  is  very  much  to 
be  doubted  whether  the  fare  of  the  freedman  and 
of  his  wife  and  children  comes  up  to  the  slave- 
ration,  either  in  respect  of  quantity,  quality,  or 
variety.  It  will  not  require  much  to  feed,  even 
for  a  whole  year,  those  who  have  learned  to  live 
on  one  meal  a  day  of  late  years,  and  on  one  or 
two  coarse  kinds  of  food  at  a  meal.  Many 
families  of  agricultural  laborers,  in  every  part  of 
the  South,  are  fed  and  clothed,  year  after  year, 
out  of  the  wages  of  one  bread-winner  in  each 
family, — and  he  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the  lowest 
paid  laborer  in  the  land, — with  the  small  help  of 


15°  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

the  little  "  garden-patch  "  worked  by  the  wife  and 
children.  The  average  wage  of  a  competent  col 
ored  farm-laborer  in  the  South  the  year  round 
is  about  $10  a  month,  which  must  supply  nearly 
all  the  wants  of  his  family.  It  is  not  far  wide  of 
the  mark  to  say  that  a  hundred  dollars  will  cover 
the  annual  expenditure  for  the  food  of  the  aver 
age  black  family  in  the  South  to-day,  assuming 
the  family  to  consist  of  man,  wife,  and  three  chil 
dren.  The  same  sum  or  a  little  more  would  sup 
ply  them  with  like  food  for  a  year  in  Africa,  and 
the  garden  there  will  count  for  as  much  as  here. 
Two  hundred  dollars  fora  family  of  three  persons, 
or,  at  any  rate,  one  hundred  dollars  per  capita, 
would  certainly  support  them  for  a  year  after  the 
house  or  hut  is  built,  and  furnish  them  with  cloth 
ing  besides.  One  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  each 
would  doubtless  pay  the  cost  of  their  transporta 
tion  and  maintenance  for  a  year.  Two  hundred 
dollars  for  each  member  would  be  an  extravagant 
estimate,  perhaps,  of  the  total  cost  of  removing  a 
family,  building  a  house  as  good  as  that  which  they 
shall  leave  behind,  maintaining  them  for  a  year, 
and  equipping  them  for  work  when  they  should 
cease  to  be  a  charge  upon  our  selfish  generosity; 
and  the  proffer  of  this  amount,  there  is  small  rea 
son  to  doubt,  would  serve  to  induce  the  emi 
gration  of  the  younger  and  more  intelligent  class 
it  is  desired  to  reach,  who  would  become  at  once 
the  envy  of  all  their  neighbors,  and  would  count 
themselves  among  the  fortunate  ones  of  the  earth. 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  151 

The  great  majority  of  the  race,  of  all  classes, 
would  go  gladly,  it  is  believed,  if  only  transpor 
tation  were  furnished,  and  they  were  assured  that 
they  could  make  a  bare  living  in  the  colony  ;  but, 
as  a  special  class  is  desired  to  be  removed,  there 
should  be  an  inducement  adequate  to  ensure  the 
emigration  of  this  class  in  any  event.  Provision 
might  be  made  also,  if  necessary  or  advisable,  for 
the  removal  of  other  classes  on  other  and  less 
expensive  terms  ;  but  we  need  regard  now  only 
the  cost  of  removing  the  particular  class  under 
consideration.  The  number  of  persons  of  this 
class  to  be  provided  for  yearly,  we  have  estimated 
to  be  represented  by  50,000  adults.  At  $200  a 
head  the  cost  of  the  proposed  movement  would 
be  $10,000,000  a  year,  or  one  twelfth  of  the 
annual  revenue  derived  by  the  Government  from 
the  internal  revenue  taxes  alone,  as  determined 
by  the  receipts  for  1887. 

The  total  cost  of  the  movement,  for  fifty  years, 
would  be  far  more  than  covered  by  the  revenue 
from  this  source  for  five  years ;  or,  again,  would 
be  met,  from  year  to  year,  by  the  revenue  de 
rived  from  import  duties  on  "  cigars,  cheroots 
and  tobacco,"  or  on  "  cotton  manufactures,"  or 
on  a  part  of  the  imports  of  "  silk  goods."  An 
indefinite  number  of  calculations  could  be  made 
on  this  line,  but  they  need  not  be  presented  here. 
So  far  as  the  mere  question  of  cost  goes,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  if  the  estimate  of  the  number 
of  emigrants  annually  were  doubled  ;  and  if  the 


152  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

sum  proposed  to  be  allowed  for  the  removal, 
maintenance,  etc.,  of  each  one  of  this  largely 
increased  number  were  also  doubled ;  so  that 
the  total  annual  cost  should  be  increased  from 
$10,000,000  to  $40,000,000,  the  import  duty  on 
the  article  of  sugar,  alone,  would  more  than  cover 
the  whole  expenditure. 

There  is  nothing  impracticable  in  the  scheme 
on  the  score  of  its  cost ;  but  if  there  is  yet  objec 
tion  on  that  account  a  single  additional  state 
ment  may  be  submitted  for  our  reflection.  The 
total  cost  of  the  movement,  at  $10,000,000  a 
year,  for  fifty  years,  would  be  $500,000,000. 
"The  cost,  measured  in  money,  of  removing  the 
compromise  with  slavery  from  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,"  says  Mr.  Edward  Atkin 
son,  "was  $8,000,000,000."  The  cost  of  seven 
years  of  war  and  reconstruction,  according  to  this 
eminent  authority,  was,  therefore,  $1,155,000,000 
a  year — paid  and  to  be  paid  for  the  luxury  of 
cutting  each  other's  throats  and  trying  violent 
methods  in  attempted  solution  of  the  negro 
question.*  It  would  have  been  cheaper  to  send 
the  Negro  away  before  1860.  It  is  cheaper  to 

*  At  the  close  of  the  war,  in  1865,  these  [the  Southern]  States 
had  lost  in  slaves  emancipated,  credits,  stocks,  and  property  de 
stroyed,  more  than  $6,000,000  ooo. — Gen.  BRADLEY  JOHNSON,  in 
the  Baltimore  Sun,  February,  1888. 

The  War  of  Rebellion  cost  the  North  alone  fifteen  million 
dollars  a  week.  It  cost  the  Confederates,  counting  in  the  results, 
not  less  than  twenty  millions  a  week. — A.  W.  TOTJRG&E, — An 
Appeal  to  Casar.  P.  287. 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  153 

send  him  away  now  than  it  will  ever  be  again,  in 
any  event ;  and  there  is  really  no  saying  what  his 
stay  will  cost  us  hereafter,  and  is  costing  us  in 
retarding  the  development  of  so  large  a  part  of 
the  Union. 

The  third  point,  the  cost  of  the  maintenance 
of  the  decrepit  and  dependent  colored  people 
who  shall  be  left  behind,  need  not  be  discussed 
at  length.  There  are  very  few  negro  paupers  in 
any  Southern  State,  as  is  shown  by  the  census. 
The  oldest  and  feeblest  of  the  race  work  to 
the  bitter  end,  nowadays,  wanting  little,  content 
with  less,  and  having  next  to  nothing.  We 
might  greatly  increase  the  number  of  those  who 
have  proved  to  be  helpless  in  any  year  hereto 
fore,  and  still  not  feel  the  burden  of  their  care  for 
the  few  years  of  life  left  to  them.  Most  of  them 
were  slaves,  moreover ;  and  we  owe  them  a  sup 
port,  aside  from  the  question  of  emigration.  It 
is  a  reproach  to  us  that  we  have  paid  so  small  a 
part  of  this  debt.  Freedom  has  cost  them  dearly 
already.  We  can  well  afford  to  smooth  the  path 
way  of  so  many  as  remain — a  pathway  which  was 
so  rugged  in  youth  and  in  faithful  manhood  and 
womanhood — to  the  verge  of  the  waiting,  name 
less  grave  that  shall  swallow  them  forever,  as  it 
has  swallowed  so  many  millions  of  their  kith  and 
kin,  leaving  no  sign  to  tell  that  they  ever  existed, 
or  who  they  were,  or  where  they  lie.  The  mor 
tality  tables  tell  the  story  of  their  silent  sufferings 
and  death.  No  appeal  can  add  to  the  force  of 


154  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

the  official  records  when  these  are  read  and  un 
derstood.  The  abandonment  of  the  superannu 
ated  slaves  to  their  fate,  by  our  Government,  is 
one  of  the  most  heartless  incidents  in  the  history 
of  the  Nation.  Some  atonement  should  be  made 
yet  to  those  who  are  left  alive. 

We  have  dwelt  at  length  on  the  subject  of  the 
practicability  and  probable  cost  of  transporting 
the  Negro  emigrants  and  providing  for  them  when 
colonized,  because  in  the  mind  of  a  large  part  of  the 
public  that  is  perhaps  the  main  question  to  be  con 
sidered.  That  the  cost  is  easily  within  our  means 
has  been  shown  unquestionably  ;  but  that  is  not 
all  that  can  be  said  in  regard  to  such  cost.  For 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  regard  the  proposed 
expenditure  otherwise  than  as  a  profitable  invest 
ment  for  the  whole  people,  who  will  be  called  on 
to  furnish  the  money.  We  need  not  give  all  the 
reasons  for  holding  this  view,  but  a  few  of  the  more 
prominent  may  be  briefly  indicated.  The  removal 
of  the  colored  population,  within  a  reasonable 
period,  would  itself  richly  repay  the  white  people 
of  the  United  States  by  its  effects  on  the  social, 
political  and  industrial  conditions  and  relations  of 
the  two  sections,  North  and  South.  There  would 
be  a  perfect  union  and  lasting  peace  and  harmony 
between  them  ever  afterward,  with  all  that  such 
conditions  imply  ;  they  cannot  attain  these  results 
in  any  other  way  :  and  the  value  of  such  results 
is  truly  above  all  estimate.  The  Nation  could 
well  afford  to  beggar  itself,  on  his  account,  for  one 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  155 

hundred  years,  if  only  it  could  start  anew  at  the 
end  of  that  time  with  the  African  back  in  Africa. 
The  Nation  would  not  beggar  itself,  however,  for 
a  single  day.  The  greater  part,  if  not  all,  of  the 
money  to  be  expended  on  the  movement  would 
be  expended  in  this  country.  The  ships  for  the 
transportation  of  the  emigrants  would  be  built 
here,  manned  here,  and  kept  in  repair  here.  The 
supplies  of  food,  clothing,  tools,  implements,  etc., 
etc.,  would  be  drawn  from  different  parts  of  the 
country,  and  to  furnish  these  would  give  steady 
employment  to  thousands  of  men,  so  that  the  ab 
sence  of  the  emigrants  would  not  materially  affect 
the  market  for  such  supplies  at  the  outset  of  the 
movement,  and  the  colonies  so  founded  would 
constitute  a  continuing  market  for  some  time  and 
would  probably  spread  the  sale  of  American  prod 
ucts  in  the  territory  about  the  colonies  in  Africa. 
The  main  objection  to  the  removal  of  the 
negroes,  in  any  large  numbers,  would  come  doubt 
less  from  the  cotton-farmers  and  representatives 
of  the  cotton-interest  generally.  Even  their  ob 
jection  might  well  prove  to  be  a  mistaken  one, 
however,  from  their  own  narrow  point  of  view. 
For  these  same  classes  have  long  and  loudly 
asserted  that  "  too  much  cotton  "  is  produced  in 
the  South,  and  that  what  that  region  most  needs 
is  a  diversification  of  industries.  If  the  Negro  is 
the  great  cotton-producer,  his  departure  would 
compel  such  wholesome  diversification,  which 
would  probably  be  attended  by  an  increase  of  the 


156  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

price  of  cotton  that  would  compensate  for  its 
diminished  supply.  If  he  is  not  the  main  cotton- 
producer,  his  absence  would  not  affect  the  pro 
testing  interests.  It  will  be  remembered,  more 
over  that  it  was  formerly  contended,  in  behalf 
of  the  same  interests,  that  cotton  could  be 
produced  extensively  by  slave  labor  only.  Mr. 
Edward  Atkinson  has  shown  that  the  crop  pro 
duced  in  twenty-one  years  by  free  labor  was  35,- 
000,000  bales  in  excess  of  the  crop  produced  in 
the  preceding  period  of  twenty-one  years  by 
slave  labor.  The  claim  has  been  often  iterated  in 
the  South  that  this  difference  is  due  to  the  white 
labor  that  has  entered  the  cotton-fields  since  the 
war  ended.  If  so,  the  Negro's  place  there  can 
be  readily  filled,  and  more  than  filled  ;  and  in  any 
event  it  would  seem  that  the  cotton-crop  is  not 
dependent  on  his  labor.* 


*  This  old  nonsense  about  our  climate,  and  the  "inability  of 
the  white  man  to  toil  under  a  blazing  Southern  sun,  is  so  trans 
parent  that  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  show  its  falsity.  White  immi 
gration  has  poured  into  Florida  of  late,  passed  over  the  negro 
districts,  and,  settling  in  the  extreme  southern  portion,  the  hottest 
section  of  the  State,  has  built  up  there,  amid  its  waste  swamp 
lands,  an  agricultural  prosperity  that  Florida  never  knew  under 
slavery  and  negro  labor.  The  white  men  who  have  poured  into 
Texas  since  the  war  from  all  sections  of  the  Union  have  shown 
that  the  climate  did  not  affect  their  labor  in  the  slightest  degree, 
but  they  have  worked  to  such  good  purpose  that  they  have  placed 
Texas  at  the  head  of  the  cotton  States,  the  producer  of  nearly  one- 
quarter  of  the  entire  crop.  In  the  most  southern  portions  of 
Louisiana  the  white  farmers  of  Plaquemines  have  developed  and 
built  up  a  profitable  rice  industry.  Those  who  talk  to  us  of  climate 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  157 

The  statistics  of  tobacco-production  are  not  at 
hand,  but  it  would  be  interesting  to  compare  the 
crops  made  since  the  war,  in  some  of  the  old  Slave 
States  and  Free  States  respectively. 

If  objection  shall  still  be  urged  against  the 
removal  of  the  negroes,  however,  on  account  of 
the  supposed  injury  which  the  departure  of  a 
large  body  of  laborers  would  inflict  6n  any  or  all 
of  the  industrial  interests  of  the  South,  it  should 
be  noted  that  the  plan  which  is  proposed  con 
templates  the  emigration  of  a  limited  and  uni 
formly  distributed  class  only,  whose  gradual  with 
drawal  could  not  seriously  affect  any  particular 


have  but  to  note  the  fact  that  the  southernmost  portions  of  the 
South  are  white  in  population,  and  that  along  the  Gulf  coast  in 
Texas,  Louisiana,  and  Mississippi,  and  in  the  southern  peninsula 
of  Florida,  the  land  is  cultivated  and  the  crops  are  raised  mainly 
by  white  labor. 

Cotton  has  long  since  ceased  to  be  the  product  of  the  negro. 
When  the  war  ceased  nine-tenths  of  it  was  raised  by  the  colored 
race  ;  to-day  three-fifths  come  from  white  farms.  The  white 
States  and  white  districts  have  become  the  cotton  centers  of  the 
South.  The  negro  parishes  of  Carroll,  Tensas  and  Madison,  the 
finest  cotton  country  in  the  world,  where  the  yield  is  greater  and 
the  staple  the  finest,  produce  far  smaller  crops  than  they  bore  thirty 
years  ago,  while  the  white  counties  of  Texas  have  increased  their 
production  four  and  five  fold.  This  fact  attracted  the  particular 
attention  of  Prof.  Hilgard,  who  prepared  the  census  report  on  cot 
ton,  and  he  notes  the  singular  coincidence  that  the  bulk  of  the 
crop  of  Mississippi  is  raised  in  the  hills,  where  the  yield  per  acre 
is  small,  instead  of  in  the  bottoms,  where  every  condition  is  fav 
orable.  The  fact  did  not  seem  to  strike  him  that  the  true  reason 
lay  in  the  fact  that  in  the  hills  the  cotton  was  raised  by  the  whites.  ; 
in  the  bottoms  by  the  negroes. 


158  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

industry  or  locality.  And  it  should  be  especially 
noted  also,  that  objection  on  the  score  which  has 
been  mentioned  would  plainly  have  regard  to  the 
Negro  as  a  hired  laborer  only,  and  in  so  far 
would  confirm  what  has  been  said  as  to  the  fixed 
position  which  he  seems  to  be  destined  to  hold 
in  the  South,  if  he  remain  there.  The  more 
strongly  this  objection  is  urged,  therefore,  the 
less  force  is  likely  to  be  accorded  to  it.  It 
would  be  dictated  obviously  by  pecuniary  and 
selfish  considerations,  on  the  part  of  a  rela 
tively  small  class  of  men,  and  it  would  be  advis 
able  to  sacrifice  their  interests  absolutely,  if 
necessary,  as  the  like  interests  of  practically  the 


Wh'te  immigration  would  mean  the  industrial  regeneration  of 
the  South. — New  Orleans  Times- Democrat,  January,  1889. 

The  Memphis  Avalanche,  New  Orleans  Times- Democrat  and 
Birmingham  Age-Herald  argue  that  we  can  raise  cotton  by  white 
labor  just  as  successfully  as  by  black  labor. 

Our  contemporaries  are  clearly  right.  From  the  first  settlement 
of  the  South  down  to  the  present  time  white  men  have  worked  in 
our  fields  without  suffering  the  slightest  injury.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  long  summers,  but  in  this  climate  the  heat  is  never  intense, 
and  sunstrokes  are  the  rarest  things  in  the  world. 

The  fact  is  that  the  white  man  stands  open  air  work  in  the  South 
better  than  the  negro.  Even  northern  men  have  found  it  possible 
to  work  in  the  fields  of  Louisiana  and  Florida.  Thirty  per  cent, 
of  the  cotton  in  South  Carolina  is  raised  by  white  labor,  a  much 
larger  per  cent,  in  Mississippi  and  Georgia,  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  when  we  include  Arkansas  and  Texas,  with  their  legion  of  white 
workers,  about  half  of  our  cotton  crop  is  raised  by  white  labor. 

This  is  the  deliberate  judgment  of  our  leading  Southern  news 
papers,  and  they  have  not  overstated  the  facts  of  the  case. — At- 
lanta,  Ga.,  Constitution,  June  20,  1889. 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  159 

same  class — "  the  employers  of  negro  labor  " — 
were  sacrificed  to  rid  the  country  of  slavery.* 

The  selfish  opposition  of  any  class,  or  classes, 
of  white  men  to  the  emigration  of  the  blacks,  it 
should  be  said  in  conclusion  of  this  branch  of  the 
subject,  would  count  for  little  or  nothing  in  any 
event,  if  the  proposed  scheme  were  adopted  arid 
begun  to  be  carried  into  operation.  The  objec- 

*  The  number  of  employers  of  negro  labor  on  an  extended 
scale  is  small  at  the  most,  as  has  been  said.  How  the  scheme  of 
negro  emigration  would  be  regarded  by  the  whites  generally  in 
the  South  may  be  learned  from  the  article  of  the  New  Orleans 
Times-Democrat  already  quoted,  in  which  it  is  further  said  : 

"We  have  a  means  close  at  hand  for  preventing  and  for  solving 
this  problem,  and  we  can  and  will  solve  it  and  save  the  South  for 
the  white  race  and  for  white  civilization. 

"  Slavery  made  it  black  ;  freedom  must  make  it  white  again. 
Glance  at  the  story  of  Louisiana  told  by  the  census.  There  was  a 
time  when  St.  Charles,  which  boasts  five  negroes  to  one  white  to 
day,  was  a  white  parish,  populated  by  industrious,  energetic  Ger 
man  farmers.  It  has  fewer  whites  to-day  than  it  had  a  century 
ago.  They  were  driven  out  by  slavery  and  its  methods.  There 
was  a  time  when  West  Feliciana  (five  negroes  to  one  white  to-day) 
was  a  white  parish  ;  a  time  when  Pointe  Coupee  (three  negroes  to 
one  white)  was  essentially  a  white  man's  land,  a  country  of  pros 
perous  white  Creole  farmers.  Some  of  them  remain,  but  the  great 
majority  have  been  driven  out  by  slavery,  which  built  its  whole 
agricultural  system  on  negro  labor.  The  planters  bought  out  the 
white  farmers  around  them  and  drove  them  to  the  hills  and  less 
fertile  lands  ;  for  to  the  slave-holder  with  his  500  slaves  these 
whites,  cultivating  small  farms,  were  undesirable  neighbors. 
What  slavery  did  toward  Africanizing  the  South  we  must  undo. 
The  heritage  it  left  us  in  the  negro  question  must  be  solved  by 
making  the  Southern  States  white  again  by  means  of  immigration. 
It  is  better  for  the  country,  for  the  South,  for  the  negroes  them 
selves." 


160  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

tors  certainly  could  not  prevent  any  negro  from 
emigrating,  and  their  opposition  would  constitute 
both  an  added  reason  for  sending  him  beyond 
their  control  and  a  powerful  incentive  to  him 
to  go. 

The  place  left  vacant  by  the  colored  emigrants, 
it  need  scarcely  be  suggested,  would  unquestion 
ably  and  speedily  be  filled  by  the  white  immi 
grants  from  the  Northern  and  Western  States 
whose  coming  the  South  has  looked  and  longed 
for  in  vain  for  so  many  years  and  still  solicits  with 
eager  hope.  Indeed,  it  is  in  the  first  degree  prob 
able  that  the  mere  beginning  of  the  movement 
for  the  exportation  of  the  colored  race,  with  the 
assurance  that  it  will  be  sustained  until  its  object 
shall  be  accomplished  in  the  entire  removal  of  the 
race,  would  lead,  at  once,  to  an  inflow  of  white 
settlers  from  the  old  Free  States,  the  Northwest 
and  Europe,  who  would  be  glad  to  find  homes  in 
a  region  so  inviting  as  the  South  would  appear 
to  them  under  its  changed  conditions,  or  even 
the  prospect  of  them. 

The  Southern  land-holders,  as  a  class,  would 
assuredly  be  promptly  and  greatly  benefited  by 
the  new  order  of  affairs.  They  have  always  been 
the  ruling  element  in  the  South,  and  their  influence 
should  be  thrown  on  the  side  of  negro  emigration, 
and  probably  would  be,  if  a  proportionate  white 
immigration  were  assured  or  could  be  reasonably 
expected.  There  is  ample  material  for  the 
instruction  and  conviction  of  most  of  the  owners 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  161 

of  the  soil,  at  any  rate,  in  the  returns  of  the 
Tenth  Census,  showing  the  comparative  valuation 
of  land  in  the  Northern,  Southern,  and  Western 
States. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  incorporate  the  tell-tale 
tables  here.  They  are  accessible  to  the  reader 
everywhere.  The  curiously  disposed  may  com 
pare,  however,  at  this  point,  the  assessed  valua 
tion  of  land  and  other  property  per  capita,  in  al 
most  any  one  of  the  Southern  States  with  the 
same  valuation  in  any  one  of  the  Northern  and 
Western  States,  or  even  the  Territories.  Or, 
leaving  out  such  exceptional  and  small  areas, 
only,  as  the  richer  sugar,  rice,  and  cotton-producing 
districts,  he  may  find  like  material  for  instructive 
comparison  between  the  returns  for  Southern 
States,  and  counties  in  the  same  State,  where  the 
proportion  of  colored  to  white  population  varies 
most,  on  one  side  and  the  other,  from  the  line  of 
numerical  equality. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  rule  is,  it  is  believed,  that 
from  the  mountains  or  hill-country,  where  the 
white  population  predominates  in  all  of  the  South 
Atlantic  and  Gulf  States,  to  the  coast,  where  the 
negroes  are  congregated  in  overwhelming  ma 
jority,  the  assessed  value  of  the  land  falls  with  the 
rise  of  the  barometer.  If  this  be  found  to  be  the 
rule,  indeed,  may  it  not  be  expected  that,  if  the 
departure  of  the  blacks  shall  be  followed  by  white 
immigration  and  occupation  of  the  vacated  soil, 
the  enhancement  of  land-values  alone  that  will 


162  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

result  will  repay  the  South,  and  consequently  the 
whole  country,  many  times  over,  for  the  loss  of 
slave-property,  the  cost  of  the  removal  and  col 
onization  of  the  freedman,  and  for  every  loss 
occasioned  by  his  absence  ?  * 


*  MACON,  GA.,  February  2. — The  contrast  between  the  cotton 
and  grain  belts  of  Georgia  was  never  more  marked  than  it  is  to 
day.  A  compilation  of  trade  statistics,  which  has  just  been  made 
for  business  purposes,  shows  that  in  every  town  located  in  North 
Georgia  important  enterprises  involving  the  expenditure  of  large 
sums  of  money  are  under  way.  In  Cartersville,  for  instance, 
$750,000  has  been  invested  within  the  last  few  months.  Griffin 
shows  recent  investments  of  about  $1,200,000.  In  Rome  the 
scenes  remind  one  of  a  Western  city  in  the  hands  of  boomers. 
Tallapoosa  is  also  making  a  good  display  in  the  development  of 
her  mineral  capabilities.  What  is  true  of  these  cities  is  also  true 
of  Carrollton,  Newnan,  Gainesville,  Madison,  and  of  all  of  the 
towns  north  of  a  line  drawn  from  Columbus  to  Augusta. 

South  of  that  line  stagnation  reigns.  But  two  points — Americus 
and  Albany — show  any  evidence  of  progress.  The  merchants  are 
engaged  in  the  same  old  trade  of  dealing  out  provisions  and 
guano  on  long  time,  and  the  principal  occupation  of  the  planters 
is  the  signing  of  liens  against  next  year's  crop.  The  same  old 
cabins  which  have  done  duty  ever  since  the  war,  grown  old  and 
leaky,  will  have  to  perform  the  same  service  for  the  next  twenty 
years. 

Bad  as  is  the  condition  of  the  planter,  that  of  the  colored  tenant 
is  worse.  The  merchant  belongs  to  his  factor  in  the  West  or 
East,  the  planter  belongs  to  the  merchant,  and  the  tenant  belongs 
to  all  at  once.  When  the  merchant  is  squeezed  he  seeks  relief  by 
pushing  the  planter,  who  in  turn  tries  to  unload  it  all  on  the  ten 
ant.  The  evil  is  in  the  system  ;  the  system  seems  to  be  an  una 
voidable  part  of  cotton  planting,  and  a  community  which  depends 
upon  that  product  must  bow  in  slavery  to  the  holder  of  the  purse. 

In  North  Georgia  a  different  system  prevails,  and  just  in  pro 
portion  as  it  differs  the  community  is  successful.  Small  farms  and 


RECKONINGS  OF  COST.  163 

diversified  industries  are  the  rule  and  not  the  exception.  There 
are  more  home  owners  who  owe  allegiance  to  no  landlord.  There 
is  among  them  a  spirit  of  marked  independence  instead  of  the 
helplessness  which  rules  in  South  Georgia.  To  add  to  all  these 
advantages,  the  mechanic  arts  and  handicrafts  are  encouraged. 
There  is  not  a  town  but  prides  itself  upon  shop  or  factory.  The 
result  is  a  home  market,  as  well  as  a  ready  distribution  of  money, 
which  goes  in  exchange  between  producer  and  consumer." — Cor 
respondence  of  the  Ntw  York  Times,  Feb.  3,  1889. 


XL 

WILL  HE  Go? 

THE  writer  has  no  desire  to  prolong  the  task 
which  he  imposed  on  himself  in  discussing  the 
problem  which  forms  the  subject  of  this  volume, 
and  for  the  discharge  of  which  he  lays  claim  to 
no  especial  fitness.  Certain  minor  phases  of  the 
general  question  suggest  themselves,  however,  in 
reflecting  on  the  scheme  that  has  been  proposed 
for  relief  from  our  troubled  condition,  or  any 
scheme  of  substantially  like  character,  and  these 
require  to  be  frankly,  if  briefly,  considered.  A 
more  careful  discussion  of  the  subjects  presented 
will  not  be  required  unless  the  proposed  move 
ment  shall  meet  with  a  measure  of  favor  which  is 
not  yet  assured  to  it. 

There  is  the  possibility,  of  course,  that  the  ne 
groes  will  not  take  kindly  to  any  plan  for  their  re 
moval  which  may  be  adopted  or  proposed.  It  is 
well  nigh  inconceivable,  however,  that  any  con 
siderable  number  of  their  race  would  refuse  to 
emigrate,  if  the  means  were  provided  for  their 
going  and  for  their  maintenance  in  the  colony  for 
a  reasonable  time  after  arriving  there.  If  com 
mon  report  be  true,  they  are  restless  and  dissatis 
fied  everywhere,  except  as  to  the  few  who  have 

164 


WILL  HE  GO?  165 

accumulated  a  little  property  and  made  homes 
for  themselves.  With  the  inducements  proposed 
herein  to  be  held  out  to  them  it  is  highly  proba 
ble  that  the  only  difficulty  would  be  in  rejecting 
many  who  would  desire  to  be  among  the  fore 
most  to  leave.  Even  without  such  inducements 
there  was  recently  a  widespread  movement  on 
foot  among  their  leaders  to  promote  emigration 
to  South  America,  and  every  proposition  looking 
to  any  change  of  residence  throws  the  masses  of 
the  race  into  a  fever  of  hopeful  excitement.  A 
few  news-paragraphs  concerning  this  movement 
will  be  pertinent  here,  and  will  give  a  fair  idea  of 
its  extent  and  importance  : 


TOPEKA,  KAN.,  January  27,  1888. — The  movement  for 
the  colonization  of  colored  people  in  South  America  is  at 
tracting  attention  all  over  the  country,  particularly  in  the 
States  of  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Louisiana,  South  Carolina, 
Georgia  and  Tennessee,  from  which  most  of  the  colonists 
will  be  drawn.  The  movement  has  been  in  progress  for 
three  years,  but  conducted  secretly,  and  the  facts  have  only 
been  given  to  the  public  within  the  past  few  days,  while  the 
organization  has  been  assuming  shape.  A  charter  has  been 
obtained  from  the  Secretary  of  State  of  Kansas,  under  the 
corporate  title  of  "  The  South  and  Central  American  Immi 
gration  League  of  the  United  States  of  America."  Those 
identified  with  the  league  are  prominent  and  wealthy  colored 
men  of  Kansas,  and  a  number  of  leading  colored  men  of  the 
Southern  States,  whose  names  have  not  yet  been  made  pub 
lic  on  account  of  the  embarrassment  and  intimidation  to 
which  they  would  be  subjected  in  the  South.  Among  the 
Topeka  representatives  in  the  scheme  are  John  M.  Brown  of 
the  State  auditor's  office,  and  formerly  a  sheriff  in  Mississippi, 


166  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

from  which  State  he  was  driven  for  political  reasons  ;  S.  W. 
Winn  of  the  banking  house  of  John  D.  Knox  &  Co.  ;  the 
Rev.  B.  F.  Watson,  pastor  of  one  of  the  colored  churches  in 
this  city  ;  William  Harris,  William  Anderson,  S.  G.  Watkins, 
J.  P.  Berry,  Philip  Pickett,  William  Freeman,  and  others  well 
known. 

The  capital  stock  of  the  Association  is  placed  at  $2,000,000, 
of  which  $80,000  has  already  been  put  up  or  pledged  to  the 
cause.  Mr.  Freeman,  mentioned  above,  is  worth  $70,000, 
and  others  named  are  well-to-do,  and  all  say  they  will  expend 
every  dollar  of  their  means  for  the  cause.  The  directors  of 
the  company  met  here  to-night  and  elected  the  following 
officers :  President,  John  M.  Brown :  Secretary,  S.  W. 
Winn,  and  Treasurer,  James  P.  Berry.  There  are  80,000 
colored  people  in  Kansas,  about  7000  of  whom  reside  in 
Topeka.  They  are  all  enthusiastic  in  the  new  movement, 
and  while  it  is  not  intended  directly  to  embrace  the  colored 
population  North,  a  great  many  colored  men  announce  a  de 
termination  to  join  the  march.  Letters  are  being  received 
by  every  mail  from  all  parts  of  the  South,  making  inquiry  in 
regard  to  the  proposed  exodus,  and  from  various  localities  in 
the  North,  showing  that  these  people  have  laid  their  plans 
well,  and  propose  to  carry  out  their  purpose  of  bringing  the 
colored  man  out  of  the  South  and  causing  the  abandonment 

of  many  a  plantation The  association  has  had 

agents  in  the  Southern  States  fomenting  the  scheme,  and  it 
is  enthusiastically  received  among  the  oppressed  colored  peo 
ple  of  that  section  of  country. 

Advices  are  at  hand  from  Mississippi  that  much  enthu 
siasm  exists  there  and  that  the  colored  people  are  eager  for  the 
change.  The  first  efforts  will  be  directed  against  Mississippi, 
Lousiana  and  South  Carolina,  representatives  from  these 
States  being  especially  urgent  in  behalf  of  their  fellow-citi 
zens.  The  expression  of  to-night's  meeting  was  that  the 
colored  race  desired  to  leave  a  land  where  the  oppressor  is  in 
a  position  to  rule  and  make  half-slavery  worse  than  the 


WILL  HE  GO?  167 

peonage  of  Mexico.  They  state  that  the  professions  and 
trades  are  closed  to  them  in  the  South,  and  the  only  avenue 
open  to  them  is  labor  of  the  most  degrading  sort.  They 
urge  that  in  the  Argentine  Republic  the  man  is  recognized 
for  what  there  is  in  him.  President  Brown  said  to-night 
that  according  to  his  information,  if  ships  could  be  obtained, 
he  could  find  500,000  colored  people  in  the  Southern  States 
ready  and  anxious  to  embark  for  a  new  home. —  The  New 
York  Times. 


KANSAS  CITY,  Jan.  31,  1888. — Since  the  incorporation 
of  the  Central  and  South  American  Emigration  Society,  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  letters  are  received  every  day  from  the 
South.  Louisiana  has  twelve  colonies  formed  with  an  en 
rolment  of  3600  members ;  Alabama  has  three  colonies  with 
looo  members;  Mississippi  has  seven  with  1900  members; 
South  Carolina  has  six  with  1300  members;  Florida  has 
three  with  800  members ;  North  Carolina  has  four  with 
1200  members  ;  Kentucky  has  two  with  700  members,  and 
Tennessee  has  five  with  1400  members. — Chicago  Tribune. 


See,  also,  testimony  of  Consul-General  Coppinger,  p.  84 : 
"  We  could  send  a  million  to-day,  if  we  had  the  wherewithal 
with  which  to  do  it." 


The  negroes  of  South  Alabama  are  leaving  by  car-loads 
for  the  West.  The  contractors  who  are  securing  them  say 
that  an  hour's  work  will  get  fifty  or  an  hundred  negroes, 
from  any  neighborhood,  ready  to  emigrate  to  the  West.  It 
fs.  estimated  that  5000  have  left  Alabama  this  season. — 
The  Southern  Farmer  (Magazine)  for  January,  1889  :  pub 
lished  in  Atlanta,  Ga. 


Col.   D.   C.   Allen,    the    general    passenger    and    ticket 
agent   of  the   South   Carolina  Railway,  was   asked   if  he 


1 68  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

knew  anything   about   the   exodus  from  this  State  to  the 
West.     He  said : 

"  There  seems  to  be  a  general  movement  on  the  part  of 
the  laborers  in  the  State  to  go  to  Arkansas,  Louisiana,  and 
in  that  direction,  and  I  have  reliable  information  that  the 
negroes  are  leaving  the  State  in  large  numbers.  Soliciting 
agents  and  emigrant  agents  are  scattered  in  various  parts  of 
the  State,  and  they  are  exerting  all  their  efforts  to  entice  the 
laborers  away.  Applications  to  furnish  special  rates  to  these 
agents  have  been  refused  point-blank  by  me,  and  I  have  is 
sued  an  order  that  nothing  but  trunks  be  checked  over  the 
South  Carolina  Road  for  these  emigrants.  I  have  tried  my 
utmost  to  put  an  end  to  the  exodus  as  far  as  I  am  able,  and 
I  propose  to  continue  my  exertions  in  that  direction." — The 
News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  Jan.  22,  1889. 

CHARLOTTE,  N.  C.,  April  28.— The  negroes  in  this  State 
in  convention  at  Raleigh  last  Friday  night  perfected  an 
organization  looking  to  a  wholesale  emigration  to  the 
Western  States.  Nearly  every  county  in  the  State  was 
represented,  and  the  meeting  was  very  enthusiastic.  In  all, 
three  hundred  delegates  were  present.  The  following  offi 
cers  were  elected  :  President,  G.  W.  Price,  of  Wilmington  ; 
vice-president,  I.  G.  Hayes,  of  Raleigh  ;  secretary,  E.  W. 
Turner,  of  Vance,  Iredell  County. 

The  Rev.  L.  R.  Ferrebee,  of  Raleigh,  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  resolutions,  read  the  report  of  the  committee. 
It  consisted  of  a  lengthy  and  labored  recital  of  the  grievances 
and  hardships  of  the  Negro.  It  was  stated  that  his  condi 
tion  was  now  more  precarious  than  ever  before.  His  rights 
had  been  constantly  disregarded  by  the  white  people,  and 
after  twenty-five  years  of  freedom  he  was  in  a  worse  condi 
tion  now  than  ever  before.  The  white  people  no  longer 
tried  to  conceal  their  animus  toward  the  Negro.  They  were 
persecuting  him  by  oppressive  legislative  enactments,  such 
as  the  Tenement  Act,  a  law  making-  it  an  indictable  offence 


WILL  HE  GO?  169 

for  a  man  under  contract  to  leave  his  employer  without  his 
consent.  It  was  alleged  that  white  juries  were  also  preju 
diced  against  the  negro,  and  that  their  verdicts  were  affected 
accordingly. 

It  recommended  that  a  committee  of  seven  go  on  a  pros 
pecting  tour  and  find  lands  suitable  for  the  negroes  to  settle 
upon,  and  then  confer  with  the  President  of  the  United  States 
as  to  the  terms  on  which  such  lands  can  be  obtained.  It  was 
urged  that  emigration  be  advocated  in  every  county  in  the 
State. —  The  News  and  Courier,  Charleston,  S.  C.,  April 
30,  1889. 

ST.  LOUIS,  June  29,  1889.— A  dispatch  from  the  City  of 
Mexico  says  that  two  colored  emigration  commissioners  from 
Texas  arrived  there  to  consult  with  Government  officials  in 
regard  to  procuring  land  for  a  large  colony  of  colored  cotton- 
raisers  from  Texas.  Ellis,  one  of  the  commissioners,  a 
bright,  well-educated  colored  man,  stated  that  he  had  an 
appointment  with  Secretary  Pacheco  and  would  fully  explain 
the  project  to  him. 

He  further  stated  that  if  satisfactory  arrangements  could 
be  made  with  the  Government  for  land,  a  colony  of  at  least 
ten  thousand  persons  would  soon  be  in  Mexico.  Already 
seven  hundred  families  in  Washington,  Wharton,  Brazoria 
and  Bastrop  counties  have  signed  an  agreement  to  emigrate. 
These,  Ellis  says,  are  all  hard-working,  industrious  people. 
Many  of  them  own  farms  and  some  are  large  cotton  plant 
ers. — Associated  Press  Dispatch. 

RALEIGH,  N.  C.,  Aug.  9, 1889.— About  three  months  ago 
the  negroes  of  this  State  held  a  meeting  in  this  city  and  ap 
pointed  a  committee  to  correspond  with  the  colored  people 
throughout  the  State  and  make  all  the  arrangements  neces 
sary  for  the  emigration  of  all  who  desire  to  leave  the  State. 
This  committee  has  been  diligently  at  work,  and  has  now  on 
its  books  the  names  of  heads  of  families  who  represent  nearly 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  women,  and  children  who  have 


1 70  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

signified  their  desire  to  leave  the  State  during  the  approach 
ing  Fall,  after  their  crops  have  been  gathered  and  their  settle 
ments  made  with  the  land-owners.  It  is  not  expected  that 
this  number  of  negroes  will  migrate  during  the  remainder  of 
the  year,  but  a  very  large  number  will  leave.  The  discon 
tent  among  the  negroes  arises  from  several  causes,  and  is 
very  great  and  constantly  increasing. 

They  are  dissatisfied  with  the  present  lien  law,  which  op 
erates  so  as  to  make  the  land-renter  pay  enormous  prices  for 
all  the  advances  he  gets  from  the  commission  merchant  in 
order  to  make  the  crop  ;  and  the  same  law  puts  the  renters 
entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  landlords.  The  negro  is  also 
dissatisfied  because  he  is  not  allowed  to  do  jury  duty  unless 
he  owns  land.  He  is  also  dissatisfied  with  the  road  law. 
All  able-bodied  male  persons  between  the  ages  of  eighteen 
and  forty-five  are  required  to  work  and  keep  up  the  public 
roads,  and  nearly  all  this  work  is  done  by  the  negroes,  who 
are  required  to  pay  poll  taxes  in  addition  to  their  work.  The 
law  passed  by  the  Legislature  last  winter  amending  the  elec 
tion  law  so  as  to  make  it  easy  to  prevent  the  registration  of 
negroes,  and  the  failure  of  President  Harrison  and  the  offi 
cers  appointed  by  him  for  this  State  to  appoint  colored  men 
to  the  places  they  have  heretofore  filled,  have  greatly  in 
creased  the  discontent  among  the  negroes,  and  to  that  ex 
tent  have  accelerated  the  migratory  feeling. 

About  15,000  negroes  have  left  the  State  since  last  No 
vember.  They  can  be  heard  on  every  hand  saying  that  poli 
tics  do  not  raise  their  wages,  and  that  neither  they  nor  any 
of  their  race  fill  the  offices  ;  that  the  negroes  do  the  principal 
part  of  the  voting,  and  the  white  Republicans  hold  all  the 
good  fat  offices.  Wages  for  able-bodied  men  do  not  aver 
age  over  $7  per  month,  accompanied  by  a  house  to  live  in, 
firewood,  and  one  peck  of  meal,  three  pounds  of  bacon,  and 
one  quart  of  black  molasses  for  each  week  as  rations.  There 
are  agents  for  emigration  societies  scattered  all  over  the 
State,  who  are  doing  all  they  can  to  induce  the  colored  peo- 


WILL  HE  GO?  171 

pie  to  leave.  Several  hundred  have  gone  to  California,  and 
write  back  that  they  are  doing  well.  The  large  proportion 
of  those  who  have  left  the  State  within  the  last  year  have 
gone  to  the  States  farther  south. 

Lack  of  labor  in  many  counties  because  of  the  exodus  has 
caused  much  inconvenience  and  loss  to  the  farmers,  and  it 
seems  probable  that  this  trouble  will  be  greatly  increased 
by  the  events  of  the  next  eight  months.  No  laborers,  white 
or  black,  are  coming  into  the  State  to  take  the  places  of  the 
exodusters. — New  York  Times. 


In  due  season  there  will  be  a  large  exodus  of  colored  peo 
ple  from  the  South.  The  signs  of  unrest  unmistakably  point 
to  this  fact.  The  people  will  go  from  there  of  their  own 
accord.  Where  they  shall  go  is  a  problem  which  will  be 
made  plain  at  the  proper  time. —  The  New  York  Age  [Con 
ducted  by  colored  men],  June  8,  1889. 


In  view  of  these  and  other  indications,  it  is  not 
to  be  doubted  that,  at  any  rate,  the  poorer  classes 
among  the  negroes  will  be  glad  to  go  at  once, 
upon  the  terms  suggested  ;  and  if  these  only  shall 
emigrate  it  will  scarcely  be  necessary  to  give 
a  present  thought  to  the  rest. 

The  few  who  are  really  comfortable  and  inde 
pendent  can  very  safely  be  allowed  to  remain 
until  they  shall  be  willing  to  follow  their  neigh 
bors  ;  as  they  will  gladly  do  when  the  success 
and  welfare  of  the  colonies  shall  become  assured 
and  made  known.  The  more  prosperous  class  of 
the  black  population  are  the  more  intelligent  and 
educated  class,  of  course,  and  there  would  be  at 
tractions  enough  for  its  younger  members  in  the 
freedom  and  equality  of  the  colonial  establish- 


172  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

ment  as  compared  with  the  prolonged  discomfort 
and  embarrassment  of  their  position  here,  at  its 
best.  A  sufficient  number  of  the  race  would 
doubtless  be  willing  to  go  at  the  outset  of  the 
movement  to  enable  us  to  establish  a  considerable 
colony,  or  colonies ;  and  if  we  shall  protect  and 
nourish,  as  we  ought,  those  whom  we  first  send 
away,  there  will  be  encouragement  in  their  im 
proved  condition  for  others  to  follow.  The 
knowledge  that  our  neglect  of  those  who  have 
gone  will  deter  the  rest  from  going,  will  be  a 
strong  incentive  to  us,  at  every  stage  of  the  move 
ment,  to  perform  our  whole  duty  to  the  colonists. 
Such  an  incentive,  unhappily,  will  probably  be 
needed;  and  it  is  reassuring  to  reflect  that  we 
shall  find  it  in  our  self-interest. 

It  should  be  said,  once  for  all,  in  this  view  of  the 
subject,  that  any  plan  that  contemplates  the 
emigration  of  the  negroes  at  their  own  expense, 
or  with  the  aid  only  that  is  required  to  transport 
them  to  their  destination,  is  foredoomed  to  fail 
ure.  The  inevitable  disappointment,  trials  and 
suffering  experienced  by  so  ignorant,  impoverished 
and  helpless  people,  when  suddenly  thrown  upon 
their  own  resources  in  a  strange  land,  quickly  be 
come  known  in  the  communities  they  have  left, 
and  deter  others  from  following  in  their  foot 
steps.  The  more  intelligent  black  and  colored 
men  have  learned  already  to  look  upon  all  emi 
gration  schemes  with  distrust,  and  to  counsel 
their  people  against  them.  Every  project  for 


WILL  HE  GO?  173 

their  removal  which  will  not  avoid  manifest  and 
familiar  errors  of  management,  by  insuring  the 
health  and  comfort  of  the  colonists  for  a  reason 
able  period,  will  fail,  and  ought  to  fail,  and 
should  be  frowned  down  at  its  inception. 

With  the  assurance  of  proper  care — in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  term — for  a  time  after  ar 
riving  at  their  destination,  there  should  be  no 
difficulty  in  filling  the  ranks  of  the  emigrants, 
and  probably  there  would  be  none.  We  can  rest 
on  this  probability,  at  any  rate  until  it  shall  be 
removed  by  contrary  evidence  and  experience. 
Certainly,  we  should  not  reject  any  plan  of  relief 
for  the  reason,  alone,  that  the  negroes  may  not 
avail  themselves  of  it.  Let  the  opportunity  to 
go  be  offered  to  them  ;  let  every  necessary  and 
reasonable  inducement  be  added  to  the  oppor 
tunity;  and,  if  they  shall  still  refuse  to  leave  us, 
we  can  then  make  up  our  minds  as  to  the  fact,  and 
conditions,  of  their  stay  ; — or  consider  the  advisa 
bility  of  withdrawing  some  of  the  strong  counter 
inducements  now  held  out  to  them  to  remain. 

It  is  necessary,  perhaps,  to  dispose  just  here  of  one 
erroneous  notion  which  is  vaguely  entertained  by 
many  intelligent  persons  who  have  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  inform  themselves  particularly  on  the 
subject  to  which  it  relates,  and  which  would  consti 
tute  in  their  minds,  as  in  the  minds  of  many  of 
the  colored  people,  no  doubt,  the  readiest  and 
most  serious  objection  to  the  proposed  scheme  of 
emigration. 


174  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

This  error  consists  in  the  belief  or  impression 
that  the  African  territory  in  general  is  highly 
undesirable  or  even  forbidding  ground  ;  that  it  is 
about  equally  divided  between  sandy  deserts  and 
dark  jungles,  steaming  forests,  and  malarious 
marshes,  which  are  alike  impossible  of  cultivation, 
except  in  patches,  and  where  human  life  can  be 
sustained  only  under  conditions  that  make  exis 
tence  well-nigh  intolerable  ;  and,  therefore,  that 
no  small  degree  of  hardship,  not  to  say  cruelty 
and  suffering,  would  be  involved  in  the  experience 
of  the  colonists  who  should  be  betrayed  into  set 
tling  in  such  a  land. 

The  truth  is,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  country 
in  question  compares  favorably,  in  respect  of 
physical  features  and  natural  resources  and  ad 
vantages,  with  the  fairest  and  best  parts  of 
America. 

The  evidence  in  support  of  this  view  is  set 
forth  fully  in  the  encyclopaedias  and  current  litera 
ture  of  the  day.  Leaving  the  better  known  dis 
tricts  out  of  present  consideration,  and  having 
regard  only  to  the  vast  and  newly  explored  region 
which  is  now  receiving  so  large  a  share  of  the  at 
tention  of  capitalists  and  colonization  societies  in 
Europe,  the  appended  accounts  of  the  character, 
resources  and  development  of  the  territory  in  the 
Middle  Zone  of  Africa  will  be  found  to  be  both 
interestingand  conclusive  for  our  present  purpose. 

The  following  general  description  of  the  Great 
Congo  Basin  and  the  adjacent  country  is  con- 


WILL  HE  GO?  175 

densed  from  the  pages  of  the  Annual  Cyclopedia 


The  interior  of  Africa  is  an  elevated  plateau,  ranging  in  alti 
tude  from  2000  to  4000  feet,  with  mountains  masses  rising 
to  10,000  or  1  2,000  feet,  and  even  19,000  feet.  ...  In  the 
most  elevated  region,  among  the  great  lakes,  the  three  prin 
cipal  rivers  take  their  rise.  .  .  .  The  navigable  water-courses 
of  that  part  of  Africa  are  innumerable. 

The  Congo  Valley  is  also  intersected  by  long  rivers,  many 
of  them  navigable  to  their  source,  and  is  sprinkled  with  a 
multitude  of  lakes.  The  course  of  the  main  river  is  about 
3000  miles  long.  The  soil  of  Central  Africa  is  exceedingly 
fertile,  and  the  climate  pleasant  and  healthful.  The  interior 
is  thickly  populated  by  tribes  that  are  generally  peaceful  and 
good  agriculturists,  with  a  taste  for  trading.  The  popula 
tion  of  the  Congo  Basin  is  estimated  at  40,000,000  ;  that  of 
the  lake  region  at  about  the  same.  The  Congo  issues  into 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  in  one  stream,  seven  miles  broad,  and  of 
enormous  depth.  The  estuary  leads  up  no  miles  to  Vivi, 
where  the  series  of  cataracts  and  rapids  known  as  Living 
stone  Falls  begin.  It  is  navigable  to  vessels  drawing  15 
feet  of  water.  Navigation  is  more  or  less  interrupted  for  140 
miles  beyond  Vivi,  and  then  has  an  unimpeded  course  of 
1060  miles.  The  Congo  and  its  tributaries  have  3000  miles 
of  unimpeded  navigation,  and  beyond  the  portages  2000 
more.  .  .  . 

The  chief  commercial  product  of  the  Upper  Congo  at 
present  is  ivory.  The  banks  of  the  Middle  and  Upper  Congo 
are  lined  with  groves  of  the  oil-palm.  The  orchilla  weed  is 
found  everywhere.  The  wild  coffee  plant  yields  excellent 
berries.  In  some  districts  India-rubber  can  be  obtained  in 
unlimited  quantities.  Ground  camwood  and  nutmeg  are 
common  products.  Gum  copal  can  also  be  supplied  in  large 
quantities.  In  the  lake  region  there  are  rich  iron  and 
sulphur  mines,  and  gold  and  silver  deposits.  Bananas, 
oranges,  and  other  fruits  have  been  cultivated  by  settlers  on 


I76  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

the  Lower  Congo.  Some  of  the  timber  of  the  Congo  region 
is  valuable  enough  to  repay  the  costliest  transportation. 
There  are  also  precious  spices  and  gums.  The  Upper 
Congo  region,  particularly  the  elevated  country  between 
the  Congo  and  the  Lakes,  is  described  as  a  promising 
field  for  colonization.  The  climate  there  is  salubrious 
and  temperate.  The  rich  river-valleys  and  old  lake-bottoms 
yield  wonderful  crops  of  rice  and  grain.  There  are  pastoral 
plains  which  are  covered  with  the  herds  of  flourishing  native 
communities.  The  trade  of  the  Lower  Congo  and  of  the 
adjoining  coast  districts  for  a  distance  of  388  miles  amounts 
to  about  $14,000,000  annually. 


As  to  the  climate  of  Africa,  the  thermometer  ranges 
from  70°  to  85°.  I  do  not  consider  Africa  as  unhealthful  as 
many  parts  of  America.  There  does  not  appear  to  be  as 
much  cause  for  malaria  in  Africa  as  in  our  own  Mississippi 
Valley.  There  are  fevers  in  Africa,  but  no  worse  than  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  which  I  think,  at  one  time,  was  quite  as 
unhealthful  as  any  part  of  our  country.  Our  stations  in 
Africa  are  located  on  high  plateaus,  and  the  country  is  swept 
by  sea-breezes  most  every  day. — Bp.  WM.  TAYLOR,  in  The 
Epoch,  New  York,  June  I,  1888. 

The  history  of  recent  political  and  industrial 
enterprises  for  the  development  of  the  Congo 
River  region  covers  too  much  ground  to  permit 
of  a  thorough  review  being  presented  here.  The 
following  extracts  from  an  interesting  sketch, 
which  was  published  in  the  New  York  Times  on 
February  14,  1889,  w'1^  serve  sufficiently  well, 
however,  to  show  what  is  the  character  of  the 
present  government  of  the  country,  what  has 
been  accomplished  in  part  towards  opening  it  to 


WILL  HE  GO?  177 

commerce  and  civilization,  and  how  far  it  is  in 
general  from  being  an  uninhabitable  and  unat 
tractive  wilderness : 

Gen.  H.  S.  Sanford,  formerly  United  States  minister  to 
Belgium,  and  the  man  most  instrumental  in  securing  the 
perpetual  neutrality  and  freedom  of  trade  of  the  independent 
State  of  Congo,  in  Africa,  arrived  in  the  Umbria  last  Mon 
day.  .  .  . 

To  a  Times  reporter  who  called  upon  him  at  the  Brevoort 
House  to  make  some  inquiries  about  the  present  condition 
of  affairs  in  the  new  African  State,  Gen.  Sanford  recounted 
the  proceedings  which  led  to  the  organization  of  the  existing 
Government  of  the  Congo  Free  State  and  its  perpetual  guar 
antee  by  the  nations  of  Europe.  "  The  Independent  State 
of  Congo,"  he  said,  "contains  1,000,000  square  miles  of  as 
fat  and  fertile  soil  as  the  sun  shines  upon.  It  is  inhabited 
by  35,000,000  people  of  considerable  natural  ability  and 
shrewdness.  Their  primitive  forms  of  government  were  of 
the  patriarchal  character,  and  they  had  developed  a  crude 
but  sufficient  system  of  textile  manufactures  to  supply  their 
simple  wants.  In  the  manipulation  of  copper,  too,  they  had 
made  considerable  progress,  and  they  were  not  far  behind 
other  aboriginal  races  in  the  manufacture  of  pottery. 

"  But  they  were  an  essentially  savage  people  when  the  In 
ternational  African  Association  was  organized,  in  1876,  for 
purposes  of  exploration  and  development  of  the  country,  and 
to  carry  to  its  people  the  benefits  of  civilization.  Of  this 
Association,  Leopold  II.,  King  of  the  Belgians,  was  presi 
dent  ;  and  to  his  personal  sacrifices  and  great  philanthropy 
is  essentially  due  the  opening  up  of  the  Dark  Continent  to 
the  civilizing  and  elevating  influences  of  commerce  and  re 
ligion.  The  earlier  operations  of  the  Association  were 
attempted  from  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  where  Stanley  fitted 
out.  his  first  expedition  to  the  interior.  .  .  . 

"By  the  end  of  1884  there  was  a  line  of  stations  established 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  Stanley  Pool,  occupied  by  150 


I78  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

European  agents,  and  500  treaties  had  been  made  with  local 
chiefs,  recognizing  the  sovereignty  of  the  King  of  the  Bel 
gians.  Meanwhile  the  jealousy  of  France  and  Portugal  had 
been  aroused,  and  they  began  a  systematic  crowding  of  the 
philanthropic  enterprise,  on  account  of  the  political  possibili 
ties  that  were  involved  in  it.  It  became  supremely  necessary 
that  the  association  should  have  a  flag  and  obtain  the  recog 
nition  of  some  Power  that  would  assure  it  a  standing  and 
protection. 

"  I  was  a  member  of  the  executive  committee  of  the  Asso 
ciation  at  the  time,  and  on  one  of  my  trips  home  I  laid  the 
matter  before  President  Arthur,  and  in  his  annual  message 
to  Congress  in  1883  he  pronounced  energetically  in  favor  of 
recognizing  the  flag  of  the  Association.  The  Senate  subse 
quently  passed  resolutions  in  accordance  with  the  President's 
suggestion,  and  by  a  declaration  signed  April  22,  1884,  in 
pursuance  of  the  Senate's  resolution  by  Secretary  Freling- 
huysen  and  myself,  the  flag  of  the  African  International  Asso 
ciation  was  recognized  as  that  of  a  friendly  government. 
This  step  secured  to  us  perpetual  freedom  of  trade,  with  the 
right  to  acquire  and  hold  property  in  that  vast  region,  and 
the  engagement  on  the  part  of  the  Association  to  abolish 
slavery. 

"  This  was  the  salvation  of  the  Association — '  the  birth 
unto  a  new  life,'  as  Stanley  says  in  his  book — '  the  point  of 
departure  of  its  existence  as  a  State.'  The  example  of  the 
United  States  was  one  that  every  European  nation  subse 
quently  followed.  This  act  defeated  the  attempt  of  Great 
Britain  to  secure  control  of  the  Congo  region  through  treat 
ies  with  Portugal.  The  first  to  follow  the  example  of  the 
United  States  was  Prince  Von  Bismarck,  with  the  same  decla 
ration  and  recognition.  But  to  secure  to  all  time  the  advan 
tages  of  perpetual  neutrality,  freedom  of  trade,  and  a  free 
flag,  European  sanction  to  the  arrangement  was.necessary — 
individuals  die,  nations  are  immortal. 

"  Hence  the  conference  at  Berlin  of  November,  1884,  where 


WILL  HE  GO?  179 

not  alone  the  new  State,  but  the  whole  Congo  basin  and 
more  was  secured  to  perpetual  free  trade  and  neutralized. 
The  important  agreement  was  also  made  that  arbitration, 
not  war,  should  decide  all  difficulties  with  other  States.  The 
acts  of  the  conference  have  been  ratified  by  every  civilized 
nation  except  the  United  States. 

"  Belgium  gave  her  consent  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  new 
State  in  the  person  of  her  King,  who  has  organized  and  is 
carrying  on  a  Government,  and  is  developing  the  country  in 
a  most  remarkable  way.  He  has  already  invested  $8,000,000 
of  his  own  personal  fortune  in  the  work,  which  he  is  carrying 
forward  from  purely  philanthropic  motives.  No  man,  living 
or  dead,  has  done  more  toward  extinguishing  the  slave  trade 
than  Leopold  II.,  and  this,  too,  by  peaceful  methods ;  and  if 
exaggerated  philanthropy  will  not  interfere,  it  is  certain  that 
the  slave  trade  will  be  perfectly  done  away  with  within  the 
limits  of  his  jurisdiction. 

"  It  is  now  ten  years  since  the  Congo  committee  began  its 
work.  Already  13,000  miles  of  navigable  waters  have  been 
traversed  by  its  steamers.  The  Sanford  Exploring  Expedi 
tion  was  the  first  commercial  enterprise  started  there,  and  its 
steamers,  the  Florida,  named  after  my  native  State,  and  the 
New  York,  were  the  first  commercial  boats  launched  on  the 
waters  of  the  Upper  Congo.  Its  work  has  now  developed 
into  5  steamers,  soon  to  be  7,  with  10  stations  and  depots 
and  a  large  and  increasing  trade.  Others  have  followed  ; 
the  Dutch  have  2  steamers,  the  French  I ;  the  missionaries 
have  2,  the  State  has  7  ;  and  to-day,  where  Stanley  ten  years 
ago  failed  to  get  a  single  carrier  to  go  to  the  interior,  and 
had  to  bring  from  Zanzibar  the  50  porters  to  transport  his 
stuff  around  the  cataracts,  there  are  5000  native  porters  a 
month  busy  carrying  Manchester  goods  around  the  cataracts 
to  Stanley  Pool.  The  Sanford  Exploring  Expedition,  now 
developed  into  the  Belgian  Upper  Congo  Company,  will 
alone  employ  15,000  porters  this  year,  one  single  order  made 
the  other  day  requiring  4000  porters  to  carry  it. 


i8o  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

11  Several  new  enterprises  have  been  started  on  the  lov/er 
river.  A  large  iron  hotel  is  now  being  forwarded,  to  be 
erected  at  Boma  (the  capital,  75  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the 
river),  and  a  tramway  under  the  auspices  of  a  large  storage 
and  trading  company.  Direct  steamers  are  to  go  from  Ant 
werp  to  Matadi,  at  the  foot  of  the  cataracts,  1 50  miles  from 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  in  21  days,  and  under  the  new  Portu 
guese  postal  contract,  the  mails  will  reach  Lisbon  in  15  and 
London  in  18  days.  A  railroad  has  been  surveyed  and  laid 
out  from  Matadi  to  Stanley  Pool,  400  kilometers  in  length, 
owing  to  the  sinuosities  necessary  to  get  around  difficult 
ground,  but  it  is  of  easy  construction.  Most  of  the  capital 
has  been  subscribed  in  Belgium,  and  work  will  be  begun 
before  the  year  is  over,  and  within  two  years  thereafter  it 
will  be  opened  to  Stanley  Pool.  A  cable  will  soon  connect 
Europe  with  Boma,  and  telegraph  lines  will  be  established 
to  the  pool.  The  State  has  entered  the  Postal  Union,  and  a 
five-cent  stamp  will  carry  a  letter  to  Stanley  Falls,  and  20 
cents  will  carry  a  parcel. 

"In the  opinion  of  some  of  the  eminent  scientists  of  the 
world,  the  Congo  basin  will  become  the  granary  of  the  world. 
Vegetation  of  all  kinds  thrives  most  luxuriantly,  as  many  as 
three  crops  a  year  of  some  kinds  of  vegetables  coming  to 
maturity.  Coffee  grows  wild  ;  the  dense  forests  are  rich  in 
dyewoocls,  and  fine  qualities  and  species  of  furniture  woods, 
and  there  are  extensive  copper  and  tin  mines  already  dis 
covered,  although  the  beginnings  of  exploration  and  survey 
have  not  been  made.  The  present  demands  of  the  inhabitants 
are  cheap  cottons,  tinwares  and  trinkets,  but  their  demands 
are  beginning  to  take  on  the  variety  and  character  of  civili 
zation,  and  before  long  they  will  be  purchasers  of  all  kinds 
of  manufactures 

"  In  the  Free  Zone  there  are  50,000,000  of  inhabitants  and 
1,500,000  square  miles  of  land,  equal  in  fertility  and  richness 
to  the  best  lands  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  of  far  greater 
extent.  The  Independent  State  of  Congo  includes  the  best 


WILL  HE  GO?  181 

two-thirds  of  this  vast  territory  and  25,000,000  of  the  people. 
It  is  developing  in  a  most  wonderful  and  remarkable  fashion, 
and  the  world  will  wake  up  some  day  to  the  realization  that 
the  Dark  Continent  is  reflecting  the  light  of  civilization  and 
commercial  and  intellectual  progress." 

Later  reports  of  the  development  of  the  Congo 
region  show  that  General  Sanford's  confidence  in 
the  future  of  the  country  he  describes  is  shared 
by  capitalists  and  other  thoughtful,  conservative, 
and  enterprising  men  of  almost  every  nation  in 
Christendom,  and  that  some  of  his  anticipations 
of  its  early  development  are  already  being  real 
ized.  The  railroad  which  he  mentioned  will  be 
built,  at  an  estimated  cost  of  $5,000,000;  is  ex 
pected  to  be  completed  and  in  operation  within 
four  years  ;  and  will  be  graded  and  railed  by  na 
tive  laborers,  who  are  said  to  "  seek  work  eager 
ly"  and  to  have  been  employed  satisfactorily  in 
large  numbers  as  soldiers,  steamboat-hands,  sta 
tion-workmen,  etc. 

Other  published  reports,  which  show  with 
what  favor  white  men  regard  the  newly  opened 
territory,  and  the  important  work  that  is  being 
accomplished  in  it,  are  numerous.  Those  which 
follow  are  taken  from  American  newspapers  of 
recent  date : 

The  partition  of  the  interior  of  the  continent  has  made 
very  rapid  progress  on  paper  within  the  past  eighteen 
months.  A  map  showing  the  claims  of  the  various  powers 
reveals  the  fact  that  about  five-sixths  of  the  continent  south 
of  the  equator  is  now  owned  by  England,  Germany,  France, 
Portugal,  and  the  Congo  State.  The  largest  unappropriated 


1 82  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

area  is  the  extensive  native  kingdom  of  Lunda,  south  of  the 
Congo  State.  In  this  region  the  Portuguese  have  recently 
planted  several  stations. 

A  very  large  aggregate  of  capital  and  energy  is  now  de 
voted  to  ascertaining  the  capabilities  of  these  newly  acquired 
possessions.  France  is  encouraged  to  persevere  in  the  large 
region  of  the  French  Congo  by  the  progress  De  Brazza  is 
making  in  civilizing  the  large  riverine  tribes,  by  the  exports 
of  Gaboon,  which  in  the  past  few  years  have  increased 
several  fold,  and  by  the  opening  of  a  new  trade  route  along 
the  Kwilu-Niadi  River,  which  is  attracting  a  good  deal  of 
the  ivory  and  palm  oil  trade  that  formerly  went  down  the 
Congo.  The  building  of  the  railroad  from  Loanda  to  Am- 
baca  is  well  on  the  way,  and  a  survey  is  in  progress  for  the 
extension  of  the  road  to  Malange,  which  will  make  an  iron 
highway  about  400  miles  long  toward  Central  Africa. 
Nothing  but  favorable  reports  have  been  published  from  the 
engineers  who  are  surveying  the  route  for  the  235  miles 
of  railroad  around  the  Congo  Rapids,  and  who  had  half 
completed  their  work  when  they  suspended  operations 
during  the  rainy  season.  The  Germans  are  opening  a  score 
of  large  plantations  among  the  Usugara  highlands ;  are 
building  many  stone  houses  and  training  the  natives  to  work. 
The  English  are  sending  two  colonies  of  farmers  to  Bechu- 
analand,  are  talking  of  extending  the  Kimberley  railroad  far 
north  toward  the  Zambesi,  while  the  new  gold  fields  bid 
fair  to  give  a  great  impetus  to  the  development  of  the  south 
ern  part  of  the  continent. 

It  has  taken  men  of  splendid  faith  and  enthusiasm  to  set 
these  apparently  Quixotic  enterprises  on  foot.  Much  that 
they  hope  to  achieve  may  not  be  accomplished  for  many 
years,  if  ever,  but  they  have  already  done  enough  to  silence 
some  of  the  critics  who  thought  their  projects  were  purely 
Utopian,  and  never  tired  of  declaring  that  nothing  good 
could  ever  come  out  of  Africa. — New  York  Sun,  April  28, 
1888. 


WILL  HE  GO?  183 

The  rapidity  with  which  commercial  enterprises  are  mov 
ing  far  up  the  Congo  is  not  a  little  surprising.  Dutch, 
French,  and  Belgian  companies  have  established  about 
twenty  trading  stations  on  the  upper  river,  between  Stanley 
Pool  and  Stanley  Falls.  These  companies  evidently  do  not 
share  the  opinion  Stanley  expressed  four  years  ago,  that  the 
upper  river  would  not  be  worth  a  penny  for  trading  purposes 
unless  the  railroad  was  built  around  the  cataracts.  A  flour 
ishing  Dutch  station  is  now  at  Stanley  Falls,  1300  miles  up 
the  river,  where,  two  years  ago,  the  Arabs  burned  the  Congo 
State  buildings,  and  drove  the  whites  down  the  river.  These 
traders  own  five  steamers  that  are  plying  on  the  Upper 
Congo.  The  caravan  route  along  the  cataract  is  being  im 
proved  by  placing  large  ferries  at  the  principal  rivers,  and 
bridging  the  small  streams.  The  fact  is  that  the  most  san 
guine  friends  of  the  Congo  enterprise  did  not  dream  that  the 
early  stages  of  its  development  would  so  rapidly  advance. 

The  French  are  endeavoring  to  raise  the  funds  for  a 
Congo  railway,  which  will  pass  entirely  through  French  ter 
ritory,  in  opposition  to  a  scheme  for  a  railway  from  Vivi  to 
Stanley  Pool  to  the  River  Kwilu,  100  kilometers.  Steps,  it  is 
said,  will  be  taken  to  render  the  Kwilu  navigable,  and  so 
establish  direct  communication  between  the  Congo  and  the 
Atlantic. 


Nor  is  the  Congo  region  the  only  field  of  ad 
venture.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  story 
which  follows  relates  to  any  part  of  the  Dark 
Continent  : 

South  Africa  promises  to  be  the  next  great  center  of  the 
gold-mining  industry,  and  may  rival  in  productiveness  Cali 
fornia  and  Australia.  The  rush  of  people  to  the  Transvaal 
gold  fields  has  been  very  great,  and  Johannesburg,  laid  out 
two  years  ago,  has  now  forty  thousand  inhabitants,  with  fine 
buildings,  waterworks,  gas  and  electric  lights.  Such  rapid 


i&j.  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

growth  is  said  not  to  have  been  equaled  by  the  most  phenom 
enal  of  our  Western  cities.  The  discovery  of  gold  in  large 
quantities  in  this  part  of  Africa  may  lead  to  a  development 
of  the  resources  of  the  country  as  rapid  as  was  seen  in  Cali 
fornia  after  1849,  and  perhaps  as  permanent,  so  that  in  a  few 
years  England  may  have  another  added  to  her  long  list  of 
wealthy  dependencies  and  valuable  markets.  English  capi 
tal  is  developing  the  mines  and  building  railways. 

Regarding  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Liberia, 
conflicting  accounts  are  given.  The  following 
paragraph  from  a  report  made  to  our  State  De 
partment  a  few  years  ago  by  Mr.  John  H.  Smyth, 
United  States  Consul-General  at  Monrovia,  shows, 
however,  the  possibilities  of  that  country  for 
intelligent  and  industrious  settlers: 

Too  much  stress  cannot  be  laid  upon  the  fact  that  the  new 
immigrants  arriving  here  from  the  United  States  are  pushing 
their  agricultural  settlements  toward  the  interior,  and  gaining 
the  salubrious  and  fertile  highlands.  These  are  some  of  the 
same  people  who  are  now  wandering  from  one  portion  of  the 
United  States  to  another,  finding  nowhere  any  permanent 
relief  for  their  peculiar  grievances.  On  their  arrival  here 
each  family  receives  from  the  Government  twenty-five  acres 
of  the  finest  lands,  and  each  individual  ten  acres.  .  .  .  They 
at  once  become  proprietors  and  directors  of  aboriginal  labor, 
and  are  not  only  able  to  take  care  of  themselves,  but  to  attain, 
in  many  cases,  competence,  and  to  add  to  the  productive 
capacity  of  the  country.  There  are  cases  of  individuals  who 
a  few  years  ago  were  in  poverty  and  distress  in  the  United 
States,  but  who,  by  crossing  the  ocean,  have  built  up  their 
fortunes  to  the  extent  of  having  coffee-farms  in  places  where 
they  found  primeval  forests,  yielding  several  thousand 
pounds  of  coffee  a  year,  and  with  an  easy  and  constant 
increase  of  their  production. 


WILL  HE  GO?  185 

This  is  enough,  assuredly,  to  show  that  no  hard 
ship  is  involved  in  the  plan  of  sending  any  con 
siderable  number  of  black  people  to  middle  Af 
rica.  The  way  is  open  to  them  ;  a  goodly  land 
awaits  their  occupation  ;  their  future  would  de 
pend  on  their  own  endeavors,  employed  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions  presented  to  them  any 
where  on  earth.  Their  right  place  is  the  place 
whence  they  came — the  Valley  of  the  Congo — 
where  there  is  room  and  material  resource  for  all 
the  development  of  which  they  are  capable,  and 
where  every  agency  of  civilization  will  accom 
pany  them,  or  precede  them,  and  strengthen  their 
hands  in  the  work  of  uplifting  themselves  as  a 
race  and  redeeming  their  own  country  and  kin 
dred  from  the  chains  of  the  fanatical  and  merciless 
Arab.  If  they  are  indeed  men  of  like  passions 
and  powers  with  ourselves,  they  should  require 
no  other  invitation  or  incentive  to  go  than  is 
contained  in  the  "  Macedonian  cry"  that  rises  for 
ever  from  the  heart  of  the  Dark  Continent. 

The  time  is  especially  favorable  for  the  removal 
of  the  younger  generation  of  black  and  colored 
people  from  America ;  and  the  scheme  of  emi 
gration  which  is  proposed  has  regard  to  the 
younger  generation  only.  The  class  which  has 
been  designated  as  the  proper  class  for  coloniza 
tion — namely  those  between  the  ages  of  twenty 
and  thirty  years — have  grown  up  since  the  end 
of  the  slavery  period.  They  have  not  become 
attached  to  the  soil  or  the  institutions  of  America, 


1 86  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

by  possession  of  the  one,  or  enjoyment  of  the 
other,  in  any  great  degree.  They  have  never 
been  slaves,  and  are  not  yet  citizens  in  any  cer 
tain  or  satisfactory  sense  of  the  term.  They 
have  had  no  association  with  the  white  race 
which  they  should  desire  to  sustain  or  prolong. 
The  former  conditions  of  their  race  have  disap 
peared.  Their  own  position  and  conditions  are 
unsettled  and  in  the  highest  degree  uncertain. 
They  are  in  a  transition-stage  generally,  and 
their  removal  should  be  attended,  therefore,  with 
less  of  violence  to  their  own  interests  or  senti 
ments  than  has  ever  marked  the  emigration  of 
any  body  of  people  from  any  land  in  any  age,  or 
than  would  attend  their  own  removal  at  any 
future  time. 

It  should  be  noted,  moreover,  that  most  of  the 
younger  generation  of  the  black  population  in 
the  United  States  are  well  fitted  already  for  the 
colonial  estate.  The  great  majority  of  them 
are  practical  agriculturists.  Many  are  skilled 
in  various  mechanical  and  industrial  occupations. 
Thousands  of  their  number  have  received  the 
full  benefit  of  a  common-school  or  collegiate 
education.  Very  nearly  all  have  been  trained 
from  early  youth  in  habits  of  labor  and  self- 
denial  which,  to  say  the  least,  should  make  their 
transfer  to  a  field  of  independent  effort  not  an 
abrupt  or  painful  process. 

Dr.  Atticus  G.  Haygood,  agent  of  the  Slater 
Fund,  in  Harpers  Magazine,  July,  1889,  notes 


WILL  HE  GO?  187 

some  interesting  and  promising  indications  of  the 
future  independence  of  the  race: 

There  has  been  some  prejudice  excited  by  the  over-nam 
ing  of  the  institutions  established  for  the  colored  people. 
Many  are  called  "  university,"  but  not  one  does  university 
work  ;  nor  is  there  now  occasion  for  such  work  ;  many  more 
are  called  colleges,  but  the  least  part  of  the  work  they  do  is 
college  work.  I  had  occasion  to  look  carefully  into  the 
matter.  In  1883-4,  in  the  schools  receiving  aid  from  the 
"  John  F.  Slater  Fund,"  there  were  employed  303  teachers, 
and  enrolled  7273  students.  They  were  in  colleges,  univer 
sities,  institutes.  An  actual  count,  as  the  catalogue  classed 
the  students,  resulted  in  the  following  conclusion  :  "  The 
percentage  of  the  whole  number  engaged  in  classical  studies, 
the  higher  mathematics,  and  other  college  studies,  and  stud 
ies  preparatory  to  admission  to  the  college  classes,  was  less 
than  5  per  cent,  of  the  whole  number."  The  ninety-five  in 
each  hundred  were  learning  just  what  they  should  have  been 
learning ;  they  were  fitting  themselves  to  be  intelligent  men 
and  women,  and  to  teach  in  the  public  schools  for  their  peo 
ple.  The  president  of  one  of  these  institutions  tells  me  that 
"more  than  1000  of  his  former  students  have  taught  in  the 
public  schools." 

In  connection  with  some  of  the  best  of  these  institutions 
are  professional  schools.  The  negro  preacher  has  abundant 
opportunity  to  use  his  gifts.  The  negro  lawyer  has  not 
much  encouragement.  The  negro  doctor  is  rapidly  winning 
his  way.  There  are  three  really  admirable  medical  schools 
for  colored  men  in  the  South  :  Medical  department,  Howard 
University,  Washington  city;  Meharry  Medical  College, 
Nashville,  Tenn.,  and  Leonard  Medical  School,  Raleigh, 
N.  C. 

There  are  in  the  South,  in  1889,  16,000  common-schools 
conducted  by  colored  teachers ;  in  these  schools  about  one 
million  colored  children  receive  elementary  instruction  from 
three  tq  four  months  per  annum  at  public  expense. 


1 88  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

Not  less  than  two  millions  of  the  colored  people  can  at 
least  read. 

The  African  churches  in  the  South  are  fired  with  com 
mendable  zeal  to  do  what  they  can  in  the  education  of  their 
people.  In  some  enterprises  they  have  done  notably  well, 
justifying  the  firm  persuasion  that  some  day  they  will  be 
capable  of  conducting  their  own  institutions. 

The  introduction  of  industrial  training  into  all  the  leading 
institutions  for  the  colored  people  has  been  an  unmixed 
blessing.  It  has  helped  scholarship,  discipline,  and  the  build 
ing  up  of  self-reliant,  self-maintaining  manhood  and  woman 
hood. 

The  proposed  movement,  it  should  be  made 
very  clear,  is  not  designed  to  be  a  forcible  one  in 
any  event,  and  the  Negro  can  safely  be  allowed 
to  decide  the  question  of  his  fitness  and  disposi 
tion  to  provide  for  himself,  in  view  of  the  aid 
that  will  be  extended  to  him  ;  and  himself  will 
probably  reach  the  conclusion  that  he  will  have 
much  to  gain  and  little  to  lose  in  working  for 
himself  in  his  own  land,  rather  than  for  the  most 
liberal  employer  whom  he  shall  leave  behind. 

Nor  need  our  efforts  in  his  behalf  cease  with 
the  beginning  of  the  emigration  movement,  or  at 
any  later  period.  The  school  and  college  should 
continue  their  work,  both  here  and  in  the  colo 
nies.  There  would  be  full  play  in  every  field  for 
the  freest  exercise  of  beneficence  towards  him 
both  before  and  after  his  removal ;  and  the  fear 
of  helping  him  overmuch,  of  placing  him  too 
high  for  our  convenience,  would  no  longer  ope 
rate  to  chill  our  interest  in  him,  when  our  speedy 
and  final  separation  from  him  shall  have  become 


WILL  HE  GO?  189 

assured.  There  will  be,  we  may  hope,  an  early 
and  growing  demand  in  the  colonies  for  every 
qualification  for  a  useful  citizenship.  Any  sur 
plus  concern  for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  which 
we  now  entertain,  or  may  hereafter  entertain, 
can  well  be  employed  in  equipping  for  the  duties 
of  life  the  black  child  who  is  destined  to  leave 
us  on  reaching  manhood  or  womanhood.  And 
there  would  be  opportunity  even  in  the  colonies, 
no  doubt,  for  the  continued  exercise  of  the  most 
unselfish  devotion  on  the  part  of  every  politician 
and  philanthropist  in  America  who  really  loves  the 
Negro,  for  his  own  sake  ;  or  has  most  faith  in  his 
capacity  ;  and  who  should  desire,  therefore,  to  join 
him  in  exemplifying — in  his  own  country — the 
broad  principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 


The  proposition  in  regard  to  the  negro  emi 
grants  is,  distinctly  and  without  thought  of  modi 
fication,  to  send  them  back  to  Africa.  What  of 
their  "  colored  "  cousins  ?  Are  the  two  people  to 
be  regarded  and  treated  as  distinct  races?  It 
will  come  to  that  in  the  end,  no  doubt.  We 
have  the  experience  of  the  mulattoes  in  the  West 
Indies  to  instruct  us,  and  warn  us.  The  lesson 
taught  there,  and  which  is  being  taught  here, 
cannot  be  ignored.  Though  the  white  people 
of  America  show  the  colored  people  little  more 
or  less  favor  than  they  show  the  negroes,  they 
cannot  make  negroes  of  them.  The  intermedi 
ate  race  must  be  recognized  and  treated  as  such, 


19°  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

so  far  as  our  part  in  the  work  of  racial  separation 
is  concerned.  The  least  we  can  do  is  to  give  its 
members  liberty  to  choose  for  themselves  whether 
or  not  they  will  go  with  their  black  kindred  or 
apart  to  themselves.  Otherwise,  it  is  exceed 
ingly  probable  that  they  will  remain  where  they 
are.  In  view  of  the  differences,  distinctions,  and 
jealousies  that  are  already  manifest  in  the  re 
lations  of  the  black  and  colored  people  of  the 
South,  and  which  are  becoming  more  marked 
every  year,  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  suppose 
that  the  lighter-colored  people  will  ever  consent 
to  emigrate  to  a  negro  colony.  And  certainly 
we  should  recognize  the  prejudice  which  they 
have  inherited  with  their  portion  of  our  blood. 
We  shall  be  compelled  to  recognize  it,  in  any 
event.  The  alternative  will  be  presented  to  us 
of  providing  these  people  with  a  separate  home 
of  their  own,  or  of  sharing  our  home  with  them 
indefinitely.  They  have  a  peculiar  and  strong 
claim  on  our  regard,  unquestionably,  and  it  is  by 
no  means  clear  that  we  should  not  foster,  for  all 
time,  in  our  own  country,  the  race  of  our  own 
devising. 

If  they  are  willing  to  go,  however,  let  them  go 
to  a  place  to  be  set  apart  to  them,  if  they  shall 
so  elect.  The  expense  of  their  removal  has  been 
included  in  the  estimates  already  made.  It  re 
mains  to  determine  only  whither  they  shall  be 
sent. 

And  to  this  question,  too,  it  appears  that  we 


WILL  HE  GO?  191 

have  an  answer  at  hand.  The  place  for  the 
colored  people  of  America  is  obviously  on  some 
one  of  the  West  Indian  islands  which  the  Negro 
now  holds  in  possession,  and  in  utter  waste,  and 
which  we  could  doubtless  readily  acquire  by  pur 
chase  or  otherwise.  The  blacks  there  who  would 
require  to  be  removed  are  Africans  still,  and  Af 
ricans  only  ;  of  the  original  type.  There  would 
be  no  loss  or  injury  to  them,  in  restoring  them 
to  Africa.  The  colored  people  of  the  United 
States  would  rejoice  doubtless  to  be  established 
in  possession  and  undisputed  control  of  so  fair 
an  inheritance  as  one,  or  mo;  e,  of  these  islands 
would  become  in  their  hands,  and  there  is  small 
reason  to  fear  that  they  would  not  give  an  early 
and  lasting  good  account  of  themselves. 

Whether  or  not,  indeed,  we  shall  cling  to  fel 
lowship  with  the  Negro,  a  way  should  be  opened 
to  the  colored  man  to  escape  from  the  position 
in  which  we  have  placed  him,  and  for  the  depress 
ing  and  degrading  conditions  of  which  we  alone 
are  responsible.  He  is  between  the  upper  and 
the  nether  mill-stones  here ;  and  might  very 
well  and  wisely  demand  his  removal,  as  an  im 
perative  right  and  duty  which  we  owe  to  him. 
He  is  perfectly  well  prepared  to  take  care  of  him 
self  in  a  separate  estate. 

Much  has  been  said  in  recent  years  about  the 
accumulation  of  property  by  the  Negro,  and  his 
progress  in  this  country;  and  most  important 
conclusions  and  determinations  have  been  based 


192  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

upon  the  assertions  made  with  regard  to  these 
matters.  It  would  be  found,  probably,  that,  when 
the  "  colored  "  man  and  the  black  man  who  is 
not  a  true  negro  are  credited  with  their  full  share 
in  the  general  account,  there  will  be  a  painfully 
small  balance  to  the  share  of  the  Negro  of  pure 
blood. 

In  any  event,  the  colored  people  present  ex 
cellent  material  for  the  redemption  of  one  or 
more  of  the  Antilles  to  civilization  ;  and  it  is 
hazarding  little  to  say  that  they  would  be  far 
happier  in  a  country  of  their  own  than  in  ours, 
and  that  any  one  of  the  Powers  that  now  control 
the  West  Indian  group  would  heartily  welcome 
them  as  colonists,  on  any  terms.  The  notori 
ously  bad  condition  of  some  of  the  islands  in 
question,  and  the  well-known  and  growing  desire 
of  the  governments  to  which  they  belong  to 
effect  a  change  in  their  population,  or  dispose  of 
them  altogether,  render  the  present  a  most  favor 
able  time  for  the  removal  of  the  "  colored  peo 
ple,"  strictly  speaking,  from  the  Southern  States; 
and  it  scarcely  admits  of  question  that  with 
them  would  depart  every  cause  for  doubt  or 
uncertainty  as  to  the  proper  and  necessary  dis 
position  to  be  made  of  the  negroes. 

The  present  time  is  most  opportune,  again, 
having  regard  to  the  general  condition  of  the 
country,  for  the  adoption  of  some  humane  and 
well-ordered  plan  for  the  removal  of  the  weaker 
race,  and  for  beginning  the  movement  in  earnest. 


WILL  HE  GO!  193 

The  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  our  post- 
bellum  history  is  drawing  to  a  close.  Its  record 
is  one  of  confessed  and  utter  failure  to  adjust  the 
Negro  in  a  position  satisfactory  to  him  or  to  our 
selves.  The  dawn  of  the  second  quarter  finds 
the  Negro  Problem  only  larger  and  more  compli 
cated  than  ever  before.  The  new  administration 
of  the  National  Government  comes  into  power 
having  a  new  Southern  Policy  of  its  own,  intent 
on  new  political  experiments,  having  new  difficul 
ties  to  contend  with ;  and  there  is  absolutely  no 
assurance  whatsoever  in  any  part  of  the  prospect, 
near  or  remote,  save  of  new  troubles  for  both 
races  and  both  sections  for  another  term  of  years, 
and  of  repeated  failure  and  disappointment,  and 
added  cause  of  dissension  and  difference,  as  the 
result  of  every  new  venture. 

Nor  is  this  all.  There  are  numerous  signs  of  a 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Negro  t^  change 
his  residence  from  the  Southern  to  the  Western 
States,*  and  of  a  corresponding  and  growing  dis 
position  on  the  part  of  an  influential  element  of 
the  white  people  of  the  South  to  encourage  and 
aid  his  migration,  which  should  not  be  over 
looked.  The  Negro  is  not  a  landholder.  He  is 
tied  to  no  place,  as  yet.  By  simply  refusing  to 
give  him  employment,  the  people  of  any  South 
ern  State  can  compel  his  departure  at  any  time, 
and  thus  relieve  themselves  forever  of  especial 
concern  on  his  account.  This  plan  has  not  been 
*  See  pp.  167-70. 


194  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOtf. 

tried  heretofore,  because  others  have  been  found 
to  afford  temporary  relief.  It  may  be  adopted 
at  any  hour  and  on  any  scale,  however;  and  in 
such  event  the  country  at  large  would  have  to 
confront  at  once  the  certainty  of  being  called  on 
to  deal  with  the  negro  question,  in  whole  or  in 
large  part,  as  it  shall  be  presented  under  scarcely 
changed  conditions  in  a  new,  enlarged  and  un 
familiar  field.  The  wise  course  is  to  anticipate 
and  prevent  an  exodus  across  the  Mississippi,  if 
we  can.  If  the  negroes  are  to  leave  the  South, 
or  any  single  Southern  State,  whether  under 
compulsion  or  voluntarily,  it  were  better  for 
them  to  go  Eastward,  across  the  sea,  rather  than 
Westward  into  the  heart  of  the  Continent.  Now 
is  a  favorable  time  to  determine  the  direction  of 
their  movement,  once  for  all. 


XII. 
OUR  DUTY. 

Is  not  our  duty  set  plainly  before  us? 

Can  any  intelligent  man,  North  or  South,  doubt 
for  a  moment  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  bring  the 
Negro  here  in  the  first  instance — a  woeful  mistake 
for  us,  a  cruel  mistake  for  him,  so  far  as  our  part 
in  determining  the  results  of  his  coming  is  con 
cerned  ?  His  stay  with  us  has  been  marked  by 
suffering  for  him,  and  shame  and  suffering  and 
crime  for  us.  We  try  to  quiet  conscience  with 
the  reflection  that  we  have  lifted  him  out  of  the 
condition  of  slavery  in  which  he  was  delivered  to 
us,  and  have  civilized  him,  and  educated  him. 
Have  we  indeed  made  so  much  progress  on  this 
line  ?  After  so  many  generations,  the  large  ma 
jority  of  his  people  are  not  very  far  from  where 
we  found  them.  We  will  not  associate  with  him, 
at  any  rate,  nor  allow  him  the  rights  and  privi 
leges  which  are  allowed  to  all  other  civilized  and 

o 

educated  men.  We  condemn  ourselves  as  often 
as  this  plea  is  made  and  honestly  tested.  We  did 
not  buy  him  and  bring  him  here,  moreover,  on  the 
impulse  of  high  motives,  or  to  do  him  good.  We 
can  claim  no  credit,  before  Heaven,  for  the  good 


I96  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

done  to  him  incidentally,  or  done  for  our  own 
self-protection  or  advantage,  when  he  was  a  slave. 
We  brought  him  here  for  purely  selfish  reasons, 
under  horrible  conditions  on  the  way,  and  bred 
him,  and  worked  him,  and  bought  and  sold 
him — as  we  imported  and  sold  and  bred  cattle 
in  our  fields  and  forests — for  our  own'  profit. 
His  back  and  breast  are  scarred  with  the  stripes 
we  inflicted  on  him.  Our  hands  are  red  with  his 
blood,  and  with  our  own  blood  shed  in  fratricidal 
war  on  his  account. 

It  is  a  dreadful  story,  from  beginning  to  end,  at 
its  best.  We  cannot  bear  to  have  it  told  in  its 
naked  truth,  and  we  have  no  love  for  him  who 
tells  it,  even  though  he  be  one  of  ourselves.  It 
must  be  told  and  retold,  however,  if  only  to  warn 
us  against  making  new  chapters  of  scarcely  more 
pleasing  incidents.  We  have  sinned  against  him, 
and  against  ourselves,  and  against  God.  We 
may  measure  our  offence  by  its  punishment, 
and  its  punishment  has  been  great  and  grievous. 

We  cannot  certainly  declare  God's  judgments, 
it  is  true,  and  need  not  insist  that  the  great  war 
was  His  judgment  upon  us.  It  is  enough  that  we 
erred,  North  and  South,  in  our  dealings  with  a 
most  innocent,  helpless,  unoffending  and  patient 
people  ;  that,  somehow,  our  national  sin,  or  error, 
found  us  out.  If  the  imposition  of  the  slave's 
yoke  upon  a  fellow-creature  is  not  a  sin  per  se, 
then  has  it  been  made  sure  that  we  violated  some 
other  than  the  great  law  of  liberty  and  equality 


OUR  DUTY.  197 

in  our  dealings  with  the  African.  Was  it  in  at 
tempting  to  join  together  those  whom  God  had 
put  so  far  asunder,  in  trying  to  unite  two  utterly 
unlike  peoples  whom  He  had  separated,  as  far  as 
the  limits  of  the  earth  would  permit, — by  the  wide 
ocean  itself  ?  The  familiar  and  Pharisaical  plea 
of  "  the  brotherhood  of  man  "  will  not  excuse 
our  folly.  The  same  inspired  authority  who 
tells  us  that  u  God  made  the  world  .  .  .  and 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men,  for 
to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth,"  reminds  us  in 
the  same  breath  that  He  himself  "  hath  deter 
mined  the  bounds  of  their  habitation  !  " 

The  brotherhood  of  men  who  are  born  of  the 
same  womb,  moreover,  insures  no  peace  to  their 
families,  dwelling  under  the  same  roof-tree.  We 
say,  and  say  truly,  that  there  is  no  room  for  two 
distinct  nations  of  white  men  in  America ;  we 
can  not  expect  that  two  unlike  races,  each  con 
stituting  a  nation  in  numbers,  can  dwell  harmo 
niously  together  on  the  self-same  soil.  It  is  cer 
tain  that  we  broke  some  law  in  compelling  their 
cohabitation ;  we  have  committed  political  and 
national  adultery  at  least ;  and  if  slavery  was 
wrong  in  itself,  then  were  we  doubly  guilty  of 
offense.  For  we  have  got  rid  of  slavery,  yet  our 
punishment  is  a  continuing  one.  It  seems  that 
the  conclusion  cannot  be  avoided.  If  slavery 
was  a  large  part  of  our  offending,  it  was  only  a 
part.  We  have  not  yet  made  full  atonement  for 
our  error,  to  call  it  no  worse.  If  we  are  wise,  we 


198  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

will  not  rest    until    we    undo    our   wrong-doing 
wholly,  from  the  beginning. 

There  is  strong  support  for  the  general  view  of 
our  danger  and  the  duty  that  is  here  presented, 
in  the  conclusions  reached  and  announced  by  the 
two  distinguished  writers  whose  books  we  have 
quoted  so  freely  already ;  and  their  reflections 
are  none  the  less  pertinent  and  instructive  for 
not  having  been  directed  to  the  purpose  to  which 
they  are  here  applied.  "  If  for  the  sake  of  theory," 
says  Mr.  Froude,  in  discussing  the  negro  problem 
as  it  is  presented  in  the  West  Indies,  "we  force 
them  to  govern  themselves,  we  shall  be  sinning 
against  light — the  clearest  light  that  was  ever 
given  in  such  affairs.  The  most  hardened  be 
liever  in  the  regenerating  effects  of  political  lib 
erty  cannot  be  completely  blind  to  the  ruin  which 
the  infliction  of  it  would  necessarily  bring  upon 
the  race  for  whose  interest  they  pretend  particu 
larly  to  care."  We  shall  sin  against  no  less  clear 
light  if  we  persist  in  forcing  the  same  race  to  take 
part  in  the  government  of  the  white  race  in  any 
part  of  this  country.*  "  Let  us  hope,"  says  the 
same  writer,  "  that  enthusiasm  for  constitutions 
will  for  once  moderate  its  ardor.  The  black  race 
have  suffered  enough  at  our  hands.  They  have 

*  "  Unless  history  is  a  false  teacher,  it  is  not  possible  for  two  dis 
tinct  races,  not  homogeneous — that  is,  which  cannot  assimilate  by 
intermarriage  and  the  mingling  of  blood — to  exist  upon  terms  of 
political  equality  under  the  same  government.  One  or  the  other 
must  go  to  the  wall." — Senator  J.  J.  INGALLS,  in  the  Atlanta,  Ga. 
Constitution,  Dec.  3,  1888. 


OUR  DUTY.  199 

been  sacrificed  to  slavery ;  are  they  to  be  sacri 
ficed  again  to  a  dream  or  a  doctrine  ?  " 

We  may  leave  the  application  of  these  warning 
words  to  the  author  of  "A  Fools  Errand"  In 
his  later  book,  "An  Appeal  to  Cczsar"  Judge 
Tourge"e  says : 

It  is  a  favorite  notion  of  the  American  people  that  every 
thing  which  promises  evil  to  the  nation  will  cure  itself,  if 
only  it  be  let  alone.  In  a  sense  we  are,  perhaps,  the  most 
unreasonable  optimists  the  world  has  ever  seen.  .  .  .  We 
are  inclined  to  forget  that  the  laws  which  govern  humanity 
apply  in  any  degree  to  us,  or  to  our  future.  .  .  .  Because  we 
are  Americans  we  think  we  are  exempt  from  the  perils  and 
dangers  which  beset  other  nations.  We  regard  it  as  some 
thing  abnormal  if  the  laws  which  control  other  associated 
communities  become  factors  in  our  own  development.  For 
a  hundred  years  all  the  world  except  us  knew  that  sooner  or 
later  the  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery  must  come. 

.  .  .  The  penalty  which  is  demanded  for  the  disregard  of 
the  laws  of  God  is  always  a  heavy  one.  It  cost  a  million 
lives  and  untold  millions  of  treasure  to  repress  the  rebellion 
which  was  founded  upon  slavery.  If  the  words  of  warning 
which  for  fifty  years  had  been  uttered  with  passionate  im 
portunity  to  the  people  of  the  whole  country  by  the  few  who 
saw  and  felt  and  knew — if  these  words  had  been  heeded — 
either  the  struggle  would  have  been  short  and  sharp  or  never 
have  occurred  at  all. 

The  nation  suffered  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  because 
it  would  not  listen  to  the  words  of  warning,  and  would  not 
obey  the  laws  which  must  govern  every  associated  commu 
nity.  Peoples  have  been  swept  off  the  face  of  the  earth  for  a 
disregard  of  natural  laws  of  far  less  importance  than  those 
with  which  we  trifled.  Year  after  year  the  danger  grew  ; 
year  after  year  our  trade  and  commerce  clamored  angrily 
against  those  who  told  the  truth  which  we  were  forced  to 


200  AN  A PPEA L  TO  PHA RA  OH. 

learn  when  it  was  written  in  blood.  It  was  only  procrasti 
nation,  indecision,  that  made  the  problem  of  African  slavery 
in  the  United  States  one  of  overwhelming  danger.  It  is  the 
same  inclination  to  trifle  with  the  danger  which  lies  before 
us  that  makes  the  problem  of  the  African  in  the  United 
States  a  terrible  one  to-day. 

No  natural  laws  are  plainer  or  have  vindicated 
their  wisdom  and  binding  force  oftener  than  the 
law  which  from  the  beginning  has  commanded 
and  compelled  the  separation  of  the  races.  We 
have  suffered  the  penalty  of  disregarding  it,  and 
are  now  groaning  under  the  consequences  of 
our  transgression.  We  have  learned  the  lesson 
of  bitter  experience  in  one  field  and  have  prof 
ited  by  it  and  applied  it.  We  shall  be  without 
excuse  if  we  trifle  with  the  danger  that  is  still 
before  us,  by  neglecting  the  duty  which  alone 
can  avert  it. 

What  is  that  duty  ? 

Every  fact  of  history  which  we  have  considered, 
every  argument  that  we  have  weighed,  and  every 
conclusion  to  which  we  have  been  led,  are  brought 
together  in  one  comprehensive,  unqualified,  and 
imperative  statement  of  our  first  obligation  to 
ourselves  as  a  nation  by  one  of  our  statesmen, 
to  whom  we  have  given  authority  to  speak  to  us, 
and  for  us,  on  every  public  question. 

In  his  letter  accepting  the  nomination  for  the 
highest  place  in  the  gift  of  the  American  people, 
Gen.  Harrison  wrote  :  "  We  are  clearly  under  a 
duty  to  defend  our  civilization  by  excluding  alien 
races  whose  ultimate  assimilation  with  our  peo- 


OUR  DUTY.  *OI 

pie  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable."  "  The 
home,"  we  are  told  in  the  next  sentence  of 
the  same  letter,  "  has  been  the  most  potent 
assimilating  force  in  our  civilization."  Is  not  the 
African  race  an  alien  race,  whose  ultimate  assimi 
lation  with  any  white  race  is  neither  possible 
nor  desirable  ?  Is  not  the  home  an  idle  factor  in 
whatever  assimilative  force,  if  any,  is  at  work  in 
the  adjustment  of  the  relations  of  the  two  races 
in  America  ?  To  ask  these  questions  is  to  answer 
them.*  It  is  too  late,  indeed,  to  "  exclude  "  the 
Negro  from  our  soil.  Something  has  been  gained, 
however,  if  we  accept  the  broad  principle  that  it 
would  be  our  duty,  clearly,  to  deny  him  a  place 
among  us,  if  he  had  not  already  secured  a  foot 
hold  on  our  territory.  Let  us  not  mistake  the 
plain  duty  that  is  before  us.  Our  country  is  one, 
and  any  error  that  we  shall  commit  will  be  felt  in 
every  part  again,  in  the  end,  we  may  be  assured. 

*  We  should  not  lay  too  much  stress  on  single  and  isolated 
expressions  of  opinion,  of  whatever  authority.  It  is  interesting, 
however,  to  compare  these  sentiments  of  our  latest  Republican 
president  with  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln  himself.  In  his  famous  joint 
debate  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  on  September  18,  1858,  seven 
years  before  his  death,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "I  am  not,  nor  ever 
have  been,  in  favor  of  bringing  about  in  any  way  the  social  and 
political  equality  of  the  white  and  black  races.  I  am  not,  nor 
ever  have  been,  in  favor  of  making  voters  or  jurors  of  negroes, 
nor  of  qualifying  them  to  hold  office,  nor  to  intermarry  with  white 
people  ;  and  I  will  say  in  addition  to  this  that  there  is  a  physical 
difference  between  the  white  and  black  races  which  I  believe  will 
forever  forbid  the  two  races  living  together  on  terms  of  social  and 
political  equality." 


202  AN  APPEAL   TO  PHARAOH. 

Our  duty  to  expel  alien  races  is  as  clear  as  the 
duty  to  exclude  them. 

There  is  no  place  in  this  volume,  it  is  seen,  for 
the  discussion  of  such  temporary  expedients  as  an 
educational  qualification,  or  other  means  for  the 
partial  or  total  disfranchisement  of  the  colored 
people,  whether  attended  with  loss  of  suffrage,  t.r 
of  representation  to  the  whites,  or  not.  If  the 
races  are  as  far  apart  as  we  have  tried  to  show 
that  they  are,  and  if  they  shall  remain  separate 
and  antagonistic  as,  in  that  event,  we  must  believe 
they  will,  the  problem  as  to  their  relations  will 
likewise  remain  practically  unchanged.  Our  con 
dition  cannot  be  greatly  improved  by  any  kind  or 
degree  of  homoeopathic  treatment.  It  is  a  case 
for  the  knife  of  the  surgeon,  not  for  philanthropi- 
cal  pills  or  political  plasters. 

We  should  have  learned  by  this  time,  moreover, 
that  we  cannot  treat  the  Negro  with  injustice, 
however  disguised,  without  sharing  the  conse 
quences  with  him.  If  he  is  fitted  by  nature  to 
enjoy  our  advantages  and  use  them — to  rise  in 
time  to  our  estate  and  level — he  should  receive 
all  the  aid  and  encouragement  we  can  give  him, 
should  we  keep  him  with  us.  It  would  be  a  foul 
wrong  to  him  to  beat  him  back  in  his  upward 
struggle,  and  consign  him  to  a  lower  plane  and 
establish  him  on  it.  He  as  well  as  we  must  be 
considered  in  our  dealings  with  him  ;  in  every 
endeavor  to  solve  the  problem  of  what  to  do  with 
him.  Half  a  right  is  usually  half  a  wrong.  To 


OUR  DUTY.  203 

give  him  half  his  rights  as  a  man  is  to  deny  him 
the  other  half — his  title  to  which  is  conceded  in 
the  bestowal  of  a  part.  There  is  no  half-way 
ground  to  be  occupied  in  dealing  with  him.  If 
he  is  not  our  "  equal  "  in  every  respect,  or  if  we 
must  believe  that  he  can  never  become  such,  then 
his  place  is  not  with  us,  and  he  should  be  sent  to 
his  own  place,  whence  we  brought  him,  to  develop 
in  his  own  way,  after  his  own  fashion,  without 
the  disturbing  and  positively  depressing  influences 
and  conditions  which  must  ever  surround  him 
here.  His  continued  presence  in  America  affords 
no  promise  of  good  either  to  him  or  to  us  that 
any  man  can  see ;  while  the  evil  is  apparent  and 
present.  He  is  in  our  way,  and  we  block  nearly 
every  avenue  of  progress  to  him.  There  would 
be  no  cruelty  in  removing  him  from  the  midst  of 
the  civilization  which  now  surrounds  him,  and 
which  chills  him  to  the  soul ;  the  cruelty  was  in 
setting  him  in  so  unfriendly  a  place.  If  he  can 
not  develop  apart  from  us,  he  is  a  mere  depen 
dent  on  our  instruction  and  scant  favor,  and 
is  not  our  equal.  We  cannot  wet-nurse  him  for 
ever.  It  is  easier  to  wean  him  now  than  it  will  be 
at  any  later  period.  It  may  seem  cold-blooded 
patriotism  which  dictates  his  removal,  but  it 
is  practical  patriotism.  We  can  never  be  a 
homogeneous  people  while  so  widely  diverse  con 
ditions  obtain  between  the  two  sections  of  the 
country  as  must  result  from  the  presence  of  so 
large  a  class  of  peculiar  and  permanent  "laborers  " 


204  AN  APPEAL  TO  PHARAOH. 

even,  in  one  section  only.  So  long  as  the  Negro 
is  in  the  South  there  will  be  a  "  South,"  solid  and 
shadowed,  and  a  "  North  "  over  against  it ;  and  so 
long  there  can  be  no  true  and  intimate  and  cordial 
union  of  the  two  peoples  so  differentiated.  In 
the  name  of  our  common  country  and  of  humanity 
itself,  for  the  sake  of  the  generations  to  come, 
whom  we  would  have  forget  our  follies  and  our 
hatreds,  and  whom  we  can  spare,  if  we  are  wise, 
the  conflicts  which  have  marked  our  times  and 
the  times  of  our  fathers,  let  us  put  the  one  and 
only  barrier  to  a  "  more  perfect  union  " — a  perfect 
Union,  indeed — out  of  their  way,  remembering 
how  much  cause  we  have  to  regret  that  our  fathers 
did  not  remove  it  from  our  way.  Let  us  not 
bequeath  to  our  children  the  legacy  of  strife  which 
we  inherited  in  the  person  and  presence  of  this 
unfortunate  and  misplaced  stranger.  A  common 
interest  and  a  common  patriotism  alike  demand 
that  the  white  people  of  the  North  and  of  the 
South — the  American  people — should  forget 
every  past  difference  and  cause  of  difference,  and 
unite  their  energies  to  redeem  their  common 
country  from  the  curse  that  now  rests  on  so  many 
of  the  States,  and  threatens  all — the  curse  of  the 
perpetual  confusion  and  conflict  resulting  from 
the  unnatural  mixture  of  two  diverse  races, 
"  whose  assimilation  is  neither  possible  nor  de 
sirable,"  and  is  not  even  contemplated. 

For  the  Negro's   sake,  and   our  own  ;  for  his 
children's  sake,  and  the  sake  of  our  children  who 


OUR  DUTY.  205 

shall  inherit  this  great  land  after  us,  let  us  have 
done  with  all  experimentation! 

There  is  one  sure,  safe  and  peaceable  solution 
of  the  miserable  and  momentous  problem  before 
us  ;  and  but  one  that  any  man  can  see.  It  can 
be  solved,  and  will  be  solved,  by  the  elimination 
of  its  prime  factor  ;  and  the  strong  probability  is 
that  no  approach  to  a  solution  can  be  made  in 
any  other  way.  Why  seek  another  ? 

The  forcible  removal  of  the  whole  black  and 
colored  population  of  the  United  States  could 
be  accomplished,  and  should  be  accomplished,  if 
that  were  necessary.  Their  gradual  and  induced 
emigration  will  be  equally  efficient  and  far  pref 
erable,  and  should  be  encouraged  and  effected 
wherever  and  so  far  as  it  shall  be  favored,  by 
either  the  white  people  or  the  blacks  themselves. 
The  whole  influence  and  resources  of  the  Nation, 
operating  through  the  agency  of  the  General 
Government,  can  be  and  ought  to  be  employed 
for  the  permanent  restoration  to  the  Union — for 
that  is  what  it  amounts  to — of  so  much  of  the 
soil  of  the  Union  as  shall  bid  for  redemption 
through  its  return  to  the  exclusive  control  of  the 
white  race. 

And  if  this  policy  shall  not  be  adopted  by 
the  people  of  the  whole  country,  the  part  of  wis 
dom  for  the  people  of  single  States  is  to  adopt  it 
and  apply  it  within  their  own  borders. 

THE  END. 


CHOICE  FICTION  ON  THEMES  OF  THE  DAY. 

MORMONISM. 

THE  FATE  OF  MADAME  LATOUR.  A  Story  of  Great  Salt  Lake. 
By  MRS.  A.  G.  PADDOCK.  i6mo.  Cloth,  $i.  (Tenth  Thousand}. 
Part  I.  A  Novel.  Part  II.  A  History  of  Utah,  from  1870  to  1885. 

of  a  high  order.  .  .  .  handled  with 
remarkable  skill,  delicacy,  and  reserve, 
marked  throughout  by  temperateness  of 
language  and  reserve  of  feeling.  .  .  . 
The  story  fires  the  imagination.  —  Liter- 


"  Thrilling  enough  to  interest  the  most 
exacting  lover  of  fiction,  while  solemn 
enough  in  its  facts  and  in  its  warnings  to 
engage  the  attention  of  the  most  serious 
statesmen.1'  —  The  Critic  (N.  Y.) 

"Not  only  literature,  but  statesmanship 


ary  World  (Boston). 


THE   INDIANS. 

PLOUGHED  UNDER  :    The  Story  of  an  Indian  Chief.     TOLD 

BY  HIMSELF.    With  an  introduction  by  INSHTA  THEAMBA  ("Bright 
Eyes").     i6mo.     Cloth,  $i;  paper,  50  cents. 

"Of  unmistakable  Indian  origin,  and    |    new  or  unexpected  turn  of  thought  or  of 
contains  enough  genuine  eloquence  and    |    fact  at  every  step."— Portland  Argus. 
poetry    and    pathos   to    equip    a    dozen    I         "The   story   is,  in  fact,    a  poem;    as 
ordinary  novelists." — -V.  6".  Times.  much   so   as   the  prose-poems   of  Long 

"  It  has  all  the  fascination  of  books  of    j     fellow    or     Philip     Sidney."  —  Chicago 
travel  among  strange  peoples,  with  some    j    Standard. 

SOUTHERN    VIEW    OF    THE    REBELLION. 

1THE  MODERN  HAGAR.     New  Author's  Edition.     By  CHARLES 
M.  CLAY.     2  vols  in  one.     772  pp.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  A  book  of  immense  fire  and  strength."  \  cised,  and  to  be  remembered  when  most 

—Boston  Gazette.  \  of  the  novels  of  the  day  are  forgotten.1' 

"  A  strong,  virile  book,  sure  to  be  read  j  — Providence  Press. 

and  talked  about,  to  be  praised  and  criti-  i 

THE    "BOSS"    IN    POLITICS. 

THE  CLEVERDALE  MYSTERY;  or,  The  Political  Machine 
and  its  Wheels.    By  WILLIAM  A.  WILKINS.    Cloth,  $i ;  paper,  40  c. 


"  Chuckle  over  its  fun  and  think  twice 
about  its  meanings.'1 — Toledo  Blade. 

"  A  careful  observer  of  the  abuses  he 
undertakes  to  expose  ;  he  describes  them 
with  interesting  minuteness.'1 — NeiuYork 
Tribune. 

Letter  from  Ex  PRESIDENT  ARTHUR. — 
"I  have  read  your  book  and  enjoyed  much 
the  results  of  your  political  observations 
which  you  have  so  felicitously  worked 
into  it." — C.  A.  ARTHUR. 


Letter  from  PRESIDENT  CLEVELAND.— 
"Will  be  productive  of  much  good  in 
bringing  to  the  knowledge  of  all  who  read 
its  pleasant  pages  the  vices  of  a  perverted 
and  degenerate  system  of  political  man 
agement.  It  should,  however,  and  I 
hope  will,  suggest  that  there  can  be  a 
bright  side  to  politics  which  pay  engage 
time  and  attention  without  disgrace,  and 
in  the  proper  performance  of  the  duty 
involved  in  good  citizenship." — GROVEK 
CLEVELAND. 


SPECULATION. 

ON   A   MARGIN.     A  Novel  of  Wall  Street  and  Washington. 

BY  JULIUS  CHAMBERS,  author  of  "A  Mad  World,"  etc.    416  pp. 

Cloth,  $1.25;  paper,  50  cents. 

observations  with  much  force  and  blight- 
ness  and  strong  realism  of  details.  .  ._  . 
Bristles  with  keen  thrusts  and  sharp  hits 
at  the  foibles  of  American  life  as  we  all 
know  it." — Boston  Times. 


"  Genuine  power  .  .  .  curt  incisive 
language  .  .  .  sharp  brilliant  strokes." 
— Boat  on  Daily  Advertiser . 

"  Has  remarkable  keenness  of  percep 
tion  and  a  rare  faculty  of  presenting  his 


SLAVERY,    WAR,    and    RECONSTRUCTION. 

TOURGEE'S   FIVE  GREAT   NOVELS  :     Hot    Plowshares  ; 
Figs  and  Thistles;  A  Royal  Gentleman;  A  Fool's  Errand; 
Bricks  Without  Straw.    $1.50  per  Vol.     See  special  page. 
FORDS,  HOWARD,  &   HULBERT,  New  York. 


BOOKS  OF  TIMELY  IMPORT. 


An  APPEAL  to  CAESAR.  By  ALBION  W.  TOURGEE,  LL.D. 
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"The  author  of  'A  Fool's  Errand1 
speaks  with  authority  upon  the  subject 
which,  as  he  proved  in  that  deservedly 
popular  work,  few  men  have  studied 
more  carefully  and  on  the  whole  so  can 
didly." —  The  London  Saturday  Review. 

"It  is  irresistibly  readable."— Maga 
zine  of  American  History. 

"As  interesting,  as  thrilling,  as  his 
novels  are." — Boston  Advertiser. 

"Offers  a  series  of  vistas  in  different 
directions  through  the  serried  array  of 
census  figures  that  are  simply  astound 
ing,  while  his  keen,  vigorous  treatment 
of  them  compels  and  rewards  attention. ' ' 
—Publishers'*  Weekly,  N.  Y. 

"  There  are  presented  reliable  facts 
of  startling  importance  regarding  the 


dangers  to  the  nation  from  the  increase 
and  illiteracy  of  the  colored  people  of 
the  South.  There  is  pictured  a  negro 
republic,  growing  up  to  vice  and  crime 
in  our  midst,  because  the  greater  per 
cent  of  its  people  cannot  read  or  write, 
and  an  eloquent  appeal  is  made  for  a 
general  system  of  education  under  gov 
ernment  of  Congress.  The  propositions 
and  questions  immediately  concern  ev 
ery  citizen,  and  as  presented  by  the 
author  are  entitled  to  all  the  significance 
that  he  claims.  The  work  is  written  in 
fulfilment  of  the  writer's  promise  to 
President  Garfield,  who  recognized 
peril  from  the  condition  of  the  South 
ern  negroes,  and  is  a  strong  and  able 
statement." — Boston  Globe. 


The  VOLCANO  under  the  CITY.  By  A  VOLUNTEER  SPECIAL. 
i6mo,  352  pp.  With  Map  of  New  York  City,  snowing  Police 
Precincts.  Extra  Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  general  reader  hardly  knows  that  New  York  City  once  fought  for 
its  life  with  a  riotous  mob  daring  four  dreadful  days  and  nights, — a 
fight  in  which  more  than  fourteen  hundred  men  were  killed.  It  is  about 
the  only  public  episode  of  the  Civil  War  not  heretofore  written  up. 

The  difficulties  of  making  a  clear,  systematic  account  of  so  turbulent 
and  scattered  a  fight  have  prevented  its  history  from  being  written  before; 
but  the  Police  Authorities  have  given  this  author  free  access  to  records 
and  statistics,  that  the  reader  may  be  sure  of  the  truthfulness  of  his 
startling  and  graphic  story.  His  careful  analysis  of  the  conditions, 
causes,  and  elements  of  that  most  un-American  event  is  full  of  vital 
interest  and  present  importance,  for  these  possibilities  still  underlie  the 
daily  life,  not  only  of  New  York  but  of  every  other  considerable  city. 


"  The  complete  history  of  the  draft 
riot  of  1863.  .  .  .  He  has  reinforced 
his  personal  recollections  by  carefully 
sifting  contemporary  newspaper  reports 
and  the  records  and  telegraph  books  of 
the  Police  Department.  Veteran  mem 
bers  of  the  police  and  militia  and  other 
eye-witnesses  of  the  riots  have  also 
furnished  material  and  verified  state 
ments." — N.  Y.  Evening  Post. 

"  It  will  open  the  eyes  of  probably 
nine  in  ten  of  its  readers  to  the  magni 
tude  of  that  affair.  .  .  .  Its  au',hor 


served  during  part  of  the  riot  week  as  a 
'  special '  on  the  police  force,  and  there 
fore  has  personal  knowledge  of  much 
concerning  which  he  writes,  and  he  has 
besides  searched  every  available  means 
of  information  to  make  his  story  com 
plete  and  trustworthy." — Chicago  rimes. 
"  For  those  who  are  interested  in  the 
study  of  the  late  war  of  the  rebellion  in 
all  its  phases  the  book  is  indispensable. 
A  map  of  the  lower  part  of  New  York 
makes  it  easy  to  follow  the  course  of  the 
riot."— Brooklyn  (N.  Y.)  Eagle. 


FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


AMERICAN  NOVELS 

BY  ALBION  W.  TOURGEE,  A.M.,  LL.D., 

Late  Judge  Superior  Court  of  North  Carolina. 


— UNIFORM   EDITION. — 

HOT  PLOWSHARES.     610  pp.     Illustrated.     $1.50. 

"  Completes  that  series  of  historical  novels  .  .  .  which  have  illustrated  so 
forcibly  and  graphically  the  era  of  our  civil  war— the  causes  that  led  up  to  it,  and 
the  consequences  resulting  from  it.  This  volume,  although  the  last,  covers  a  period 
antecedent  to  the  others.  The  opening  scene  of  the  story  is  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mohawk,  in  central  New  York,  and  the  time  is  November,  1848,  just  when  the  grow 
ing  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  country  was  beginning  to  make  itself  felt.  . 
Forcible,  picturesque." — Chicago  Evening  Journal. 

FIGS  and  THISTLES.  (A  Typical  American  Career.)  528  pp., 
with  Gar  field  frontispiece.  $1.50. 

"Crowded  with  incident,  populous  with  strong  characters,  rich  in  humor,  and 
from  beginning  to  end  alive  with  absorbing  interest."— Commonwealth  (Boston). 

"  A  capital  American  story.  Its  characters  are  not  from  foreign  courts  or  the 
pestilential  dens  of  foreign  cities.  They  are  fresh  from  the  real  life  of  the  forest 
and  prairie  of  the  West.'1 — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

A  ROYAL    GENTLEMAN.     (Master   and   Slave.)     [Originally 

published  under  the  title  of  "  Toinette. "]  424  pp.  Illustrated.  $1.50. 

"  While,  with  no  political  discussions,  it  grasps  the  historic  lines  which  have 

formed  so  large  a  part  of  this  author's  inspiration,  it  mingles  with  them  the  threads 

of  love,  mystery,  adventure,  crime,  and   the  personal  elements  of  battlefield  and 

hospital   in  such  a  way  that  the  reader  is  led  on  by  the  most  absorbing  interest  in 

the  characters  themselves." — Albany  Evening  Journal. 

A  FOOL'S  ERRAND:  and,  The  Invisible  Empire.  (The  Re 
construction  Era.)  528  pp.  Illustrated.  $1.50. 

"  Holds  the  critic  spell-bound English  literature  contains  no  similar 

picture." — International  Review.  "  Abounds  in  sketches  not  matched  in  the  whole 
range  of  modern  fiction." — Boston  Traveller.  "Among  the  famous  novels  that, 
once  written,  must  be  read  by  everybody." — Portland  Advertiser. 

BRICKS  without  STRAW.     (The  Bondage  of  the  Freedman.) 

522pp.     Frontispiece.     $1.50. 

"  The  characters  are  real  creations  of  romance,  who  will  live  alongside  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  or  Walter  Scott's  till  the  times  that  gave  them  birth  have  been  forgotten." 
— Advance  (Chicago). 

"Since  the  days  of  Swift  and  his  pamphleteers,  we  doubt  if  fiction  has  been 
made  to  play  so  caustic  and  delicate  a  part." — San  Francisco  News-Letter. 

JOHN  EAX  :  Including  MAMELON  and  ZOURI'S  CHRIST 
MAS.     (The  South  Without  the  Shadow.)     $1.25. 
"  Rare  genre  pictures  of  Southern  life,  scenes,  men,  women,  and  customs  drawn 
by  a  Northern  hand  in  a  manner  as  masterly  as  it  is  natural.     .     .     .     Such  books  as 
Tourgee's  last  will  do  more  toward  bringing  Southern  and  Northern  people  into 
complete  social  and  business  intercourse  than  all  the  peace  conferences  and  soldier 
reunions  that  were  ever  held  since   the  war,  put  together." — Vicksburg  (Miss.) 
Herald. 

BLACK  ICE.  A  Story  of  a  Northern  Winter.  i6mo,  435  pp. 
Cloth.  $1.25. 

"  We  have  to  confess  to  having  read  400  pages  at  a  sitting.1'— Daily  A  merican 
(Nashville).  "  His  portraitures  pass  before  the  mind's  eye  as  living  figures — real  men 
nnd  women,  clothed  in  veritable  flesh  and  blood.  The  reader  feels  that  he  is  in  the 
midst  of  life."—  Utica  (N.  Y.)  Daily  Press. 

Sets,  the  above  7  vols.,  i6mo,  new  Popular  Edition,  extra  cloth, 
boxed,  $10.00. 

FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


"  Written  in  a  style  pure  and  entirely  unimpeachable  ,  it  deserves  high  pra 
Compressing  so  muck  into  so  small  a  compass,  without  omitting  the  details  that 
enliven  and  the  colors  that  allure."—  PHILADELPHIA  NORTH  AMERICAN. 

A  CONCISE   HISTORY 

OF  THE 

AMERICAN    PEOPLE. 

BY  JACOB  HARRIS  PATTON,  A.M. 

Illustrated   with   Portraits,    Charts,    Maps,  etc.,   and   containing   Marginal 

Dates,  Census  Tables  (1880),  Statistical  References,  and 

full  Indexes—  both  Analytical  and  Topical. 

Hebisefc  SStrtttou* 


Originally  undertaken  to  provide,  within  moderate  limits,  a  history 
'of  the  people  for  the  people,"  which  should  be  at  once  comprehensive 
and  compact,  this  work  has  held  a  high  rank  for  its  success  in  the  precise 
diing  aimed  at. 

"  Prof.  PATTON  approaches  much  nearer  to  the  ideal  historian  than  any  writer  of 
similar  books.  His  work  must  be  given  the  highest  place  among  short  histories  of  the 
United  States.11—  Christian  Union  (New  York). 

The  result  of  Prof.  PATTON'S  plan,  arrangement  of  material,  and  style 
of  execution,  in  this  work,  is  virtually  tc  give  three  histories  in  one. 
First,  a  complete  civil  and  military  History  of  the  United  States, 
from  the  discovery  of  the  Continent  to  1882.  Then,  a  History  of  Amer 
ican  Politics,  divided  into  Presidential  terms,  showing  the  character- 
!3tic  bearings  and  accomplishments  of  each.  And,  pervading  all,  the 
general  effect  is  that  of  an  animated  narrative  of  the  Life  of  the 
American  People,  comprising  the  mingling  of  nationalities  ;  the  begin 
nings  and  growth  of  industries,  commerce,  finances  ;  the  force  of  religious 
ideas  ;  the  development  of  individual  independence  and  popular  govern 
ment  ;  the  results  of  education  and  its  influence  upon  public  opinion  ; 
the  motives  and  progress  of  the  several  wars  —  in  short,  an  admirably 
complete  view  of  the  annals  of  our  people,  attractive  in  color  and 
clear  of  comprehension. 

"  Prof.  PATTON  .  .  .  is  a  successful  teacher  of  long  experience,  and  he  lias  thor 
ough  command  of  his  material.  .  .  .  We  regard  the  book  as,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  valuable  popular  manual  of  American  history  now  in  the  market.  It  is  a  book 
to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  young  people,  .  .  .  and  students  and  readers  of  all 
kinds  will  find  it  an  invaluable  hand-book  for  reference."  —  The  Presbyterian  Review. 

Special  facilities  for  reference  are  found  in  the  continuous  Mar 
ginal  Dates,  Cross  References  from  one  part  of  the  work  to  another, 
interesting  Statistical  Tables,  and  full  Indexes.  The  Analytical  Index 
is  very  complete,  giving  alphabetically  more  than  2000  References.  The 
Topical  Index  is  of  great  value  in  the  study  or  search  after  special  subjects. 

"  We  take  great  pleasure  in  commending  it  for  general  reading  and  reference,  for  use 
in  colleges  and  schools,  and  for  all  the  purposes  of  a  complete  and  accurate  history. 

.  .  \Ve  have  in  it  a  panoramic  view  of  the  nation,  from  its  origin,  through  its 
wonderful  progress,  to  its  present  standing  among  the  nations  of  the  world.  .  .  . 
The  publishers  have  brought  out  the  work  in  very  handsome  style.  The  numerous 
engravings  of  eminent  men  give  it  also  the  attractiveness  of  a  National  Portrait  Gal 
lery."  —  New  York  Observer. 

"  It  is  without  doubt  the  best  short  history  of  the  United  States  that  has  ever  been 
published.  No  progressive  teacher  can  afford  to  do  without  it."  —  Teacher's  Insti 
tute,  N.  Y. 

Complete  from  the  discovery  of  the  continent  to  Arthur's  Administra 
tion,  embracing  the  Colonial,  the  Constitutional,  the  Rebellion,  and  the 
Reconstruction  periods. 

2  Vols.,  Extra  Cloth,  gilt  top  .  .  $5.00     |     2  Tols.,  Half  Morocco  ..........  $9.00 

1  Vol.,  Half  Russia  ............  $7.00 

FORDS,  HOWARD  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


"A  charming  iddition  to  the  personal  history  of  American  literature? 

BRYANT,*? HIS  FRIENDS: 

SOME    REMINISCENCES    OF    THE 
KNICKERBOCKER    WRITERS. 

Biographical  and  Anecdotal  Sketches  of  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYAN'S, 
JAMES  K.  PAULDING,  WASHINGTON  IRVING,  RICHARD  HENRY  DANA 
JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER,  FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK,  and  JAMES  RODMAN 
DRAKE  ;  together  with  POE,  WILLIS,  and  BAYARD  TAYLOR.  Also  con- 
eluding  chapter  on  "The  Knickerbocker  Literature,"  giving  shorter 
notices  of  quite  a  number  of  others,  who,  making  their  fame  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century,  were  the  pioneers  of  American  literature,  as  grouped 
around  the  most  conspicuous  figure  of  the  early  writers  of  New  York. 

BY  JAMES   GRANT   WILSON, 

Author  of  "Poets  and  Poetry  of  Scotland,"    "Life  and  Letters  of  Fitz-Grtent 

Halleckr 


,  ,with  Steel  Portraits  of  BRYANT,  PAULDING,  and  HALLECK  ; 

and   Facsimile  MSS.  of  BRYANT,    IRVING,    DANA,   DRAKE,  WILLIS,   POE,  PAYNE, 
1  AYLOR,  MORRIS,  and  STREET.    INDEXED  with  about  400  reference-names. 

Pages  444.    Cloth  beveled,  gilt  top.    $2. 


"I  have  read  it  with  interest  and  pleas 
ure,  following  your  words  often  with 
my  memory,  and,  under  your  guidance, 
recalling  delightful  hours  and  famous 
men.  Your  book  is  sure  to  be  read 
gladly,  if  what  Willis  once  said  to  me  be 
true,  that  people  always  read  with  avid 
ity  two  things, — stones  of  themselves 
and  of  other  people." — GEORGE  WIL 
LIAM  CURTIS. 

"  A  standard  volume  of  literary  his 
tory.  It  is  valuable  for  its  concise  and 
clear  collection  of  facts  and  statistical 
knowledge;  valuable  for  its  grouping  of 
the  eminent  men  who  were  the  found 
ers  of  a  pure  and  noble  national  library; 
and  especially  valuable  in  the  vigor  and 
graphic  pictorial  power  with  which 
those  days  and  scenes,  gone  from  all 
save  memory,  are  brought  to  life  and 
light  again." — Boston  Ev^g  Traveller. 


"  I  have  read  it  with  interest  and  re 
spect.  ...  It  was  time  that  some  au 
thor  of  knowledge  and  authority  should 
do  justice  to  the  Knickerbocker  group, 
whom  it  has  been  the  poor  fashion  to  de 
preciate  of  late  years.  .  .  .  Accept 
my  thanks,  as  a  New  York  author,  for 
the  work  you  have  accomplished." — 
EDMUND  CLARENCE  STEDMAN. 

"  No  man  living  is  probably  so  well 
fitted  as  the  author  of  this  volume  to 
sketch  the  group  of  Knickerbocker 
writers.  .  .  .  These  reminiscences  are 
necessarily  fragmentary,  but  they  are 
specially  interesting  in  that  they  for 
the  most  part  record  personal  experi 
ences  of  the  writer.  ...  A  welcome 
publication." — New  York  Tribune. 

"  A  delightful  addition  to  the  stores 
of  literary  and  personal  history." — Chi~ 
cago  Inter-Ocean. 


Eetnainber  of  £arg£  JJaper  (Ebitiott 

STRICTLY  LIMITED    TO    195   NUMBERED    COPIES. 

Illustrated  with  48  rare  Steel  Portrait  Plates,  4  Views  of  Poets'  Homes 
(Steel)  and  17  pages  of  Manuscript  fac-simile. 

Cased  in  Cloth,  gilt  top,  uncut  edpfes,  $15.  Furnished  in  Sheets,  for 
those  who  wish  to  add  illustrative  rlates,  at  t  e  same  price  as  cloth-cased. 
Bound  in  Full  Turkey  Morocco,  gilt,  $25.  [All  styles  in  Boxes.] 


FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


fH£  ONLY  EXISTING  COMPLETE  BOOK  ON  THE  SUBJECT. 

THE  FIELD  OF  HONOR. 

BEING  A  FULL,  GRAPHIC,  AND  COMPREHENSIVE  HISTORY 

OF  DUELLING  AND  DUELLING  SCENES. 

From  the  Introduction  of  the  Judicial  Duel  into  Europe  during  the  Sixth 
Century  up  to  the  time  of  its  General  Debasement  and  Prohibition  ; 
Also  of  the  Rise  and  Prevalence  and  General  Decadence  of  the 
Private   Duel   throughout   the   Civilized   World ;  and,   also, 
Graphic   and   Elaborate    Descriptions  .of  all   the  Noted 
Fatal   Duels  that  have   ever  taken  place  in  Europe 
and  America,  and  of  the  Many  Other  Famous 
Hostile  Meetings  of  Distinguished  Amer 
icans   and    Europeans    upon    the 
(so-called)  "  Field  of  Honor." 

By  MAJOR    BEN    C.    TRUMAN, 

Author  of '" 'Campaigning  in  Tennessee^  "The  South  after  the  War,"  ^^  Semi* 
Tropical  California,      "Tourists    Illustrated  Guide  to  the  Celebrated 
Summer  and  Winter  Resorts  of  California ,' '  '  'Homes  and  Happi 
ness  in  the  Golden  State  of  California"  Etc.,  Etc. 

Published  by  FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  27  Park  Place,  N.  Y. 


i. — Introductory  and  Historical. 

2. — Duelling  in  France. 

3. —         "  England. 

4. —  Ireland  and  Scotland. 

5. —  Other     European 

Countries. 

6.— Duelling  in  United  States. 
7. —        "  Mexico,  West  Indies, 

Japan,  among  the  Indians,  and 
among  all  other  Nations. 
3. — Duelling  on  Horseback,  in  Bal 
loons,  at  Sea,  in  Fiction,  on  the 
Stage,  etc.;  Tournaments  and 
Jousts. 

9. — Duelling  among  Clergymen, 
lo. — Duelling  among  Women. 
ii. — Duelling  in  the  Dark,  by  Moon 
light,  and  by  Candlelight. 
12. — Noted   European   Duels    (several 

chapters). 
13. — Noted   American   Duels    (several 

chapters). 

14.— First    and    Last   Fatal   Duels    in 
United  States. 


15. — Hamilton  and  Burr.       Foote  and 

Prentiss. 
16. — Decatur  and  Barren.     Crittenden 

and  Conway. 
17. — Cilley  and  Graves.     Jackson  and 

Dickinson. 
18. — Duels    among    U.   S.   Army  and 

Navy  Officers. 
19. — Broderick  and  Terry.     Tevis  and 

Lippincott. 
20. — All   the    other    noted    California 

Duels. 

si. — Duels  among  American  Journal 
ists. 
22. — Noted  Duels  in  which  there  was 

no  blood  shed. — Randolph  and 

Clay's,  and  others. 
23. — The  Rarest  Kind  of  Bravery. 
24. — Duellists  of  Various  Types. 
25. — Remorse  of  Duellists. 
26. — Notable  Escapes. 
27. — Pathos  and  Sentiment  of  the  Field. 
28. — Romance  of  Duelling. 
29. — Humors  and   Pleasantries  of  the 

Field. 


Every  Lawyer  and  every  Journalist  must  hare  it  as  a  Book  of  Reference. 

Every  Gentleman  should  have  it  in  his  House. 

No  Army  or  Navy  Officer  should  be  without  it. 

No  Library  in  the  World  will  be  Complete  without  it. 

Every  Historical  Student  and  Curious  Header  will  want  it. 

599  PAGES,  i2Mo.  THOROUGHLY  INDEXED,  AND  HANDSOMELY  BOUND  IN  SCARLET 
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SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA: 

Its   Valleys,   Hills,   and  Streams;   Its  Animals, 

Birds,  and  Fishes;  Its  Gardens,  Farms, 

and  Climate. 

BY  THEO.  S.  VAN  DYKE. 

"  A  keen  and  observant  naturalist."— London  (Eng.)  Morning  Post. 

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title." — London  (Eng.)  Times. 

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hand." — Cincinnati  Coin.- Gazette. 

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Graph  ic. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 

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nia. 


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OF 


POETRY  AND  SONG. 

New  Holiday  Edition. 

£000  Poems  from  600  Authors— English,  Scottish, 
Irish,  and  American,  including  translations  from 
Ancient  and  Modern  Languages  Classified  and 
fully  Indexed. 

The  LARGEST,  COMPLETES!,  and  BEST. 


THIS  BOOK  stands  by  general  consent  at  the  head  of  its  class.  Its  fame 
is  an  established  fact  not  only  with  the  reading  and  book-buying  public,  but 
among  the  severest  critics. 

It  is  now  the  completest  existing  collection  of  the  best  work  of  the  best 
poets  of  all  countries  and  all  times — the  garnered  wheat  without  the  chajf. 

" . .  It  affords  a  collection  of  the  most  memorable  productions  in  English  verse 
for  the  delight  of  the  family,  the  recreation  of  the  student,  the  refreshment  of 
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It  is  adapted  to  all  ages  and  classes,  and  is  pre-eminently  "  The  Family 
Book"  as  Mr.  BRYANT  was  wont  to  call  it. 

"  It  is  a  perfect  treasure-house  of  fine  things— handy,  handsome,  and  well- 
indexed.'1'' — S.  B.  NOYES,  Editor  of  the  famous  Analytical  Index  of  the 
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The  Poets  and  Poetry  of  the  English  spealiing 
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ILLUSTRATED 

By     SPECIMENS     of    their     HANDWRITING, 
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FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


FACE  TO  FACE  WITH  THE  MEXICANS: 


THE 


Domestic  Life,  Educational,  Social,  and  Business  Ways, 

Statesmanship  and  Literature,  Legendary  and 

General  History  of  the  Mexican  People, 

As  Seen  and   Studied  by  an  American  Woman  During  Seven 
Years  of  Familiar  Intercourse  with  them. 


By  FANNY  CHAMBERS  GOOCH. 


With  200  Illustrations  from  Original  Drawings  and  Photographs, 

Giving  a  Complete  Picturesque  Delineation  of  Interesting  and  Beautiful 

Places,  Famous  Heroes,  Rulers  and  Authors,  and  a  multiplicity  of 

the  detail  of  every  day  life  among  that  unique  people. 


"Mrs.  Gooch  has  really  seen  the 
Mexican  people  'face  to  face.'  Her 
hook  is  true  to  its  title.  It  is  the  report 
not  of  a  visitor  but  of  a  resident,  ...  a 
minute  photographing  of  its  interior  as 
explored  and  studied  through  daily 
familiarity  long  continued.  .  .  .  The 
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book,  in  their  streets,  shops,  homes;  we 
observe  their  habits  and  peculiarities, 
we  hear  their  language,  we  are  taken 
into  the  penetralia  of  their  dwellings— 
their  nurseries  and  kitchens;  nothing  is 
reserved  from  us;  the  whole  Mexican 
character  is  unveiled.  It  is  like  living 
in  Mexico  to  read  this  book.  .  .  .  Alto 
gether  this  is  a  fresh,  piquant,  instruc- 


get  at  the  details  of  Mexican  life,  and 
for  the  masculine  foreigner  altogether 
impossible.  Mrs.  Gooch  appears  to 
have  learned  the  whole,  and  she  tells  it 
all.  .  .  .  There  is  no  other  book  so  full, 
so  minute,  and  at  the  same  time  so  au 
thentic." — Chicago  Times. 

"Graphic,  .  .  .  trustworthy,  .  .  . 
delightfully  naive  and  entertaining." 
Critic,  New  York. 

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live  and  readable  work.     Many  books        alike  7nteresting  to    the   traveler    and 
take  one  to  Mexico;  this  takes  one  into        useful  ,0  the  business  community. 


Mexico."—  Literary  World,  Boston. 
"  It  is  difficult  for  any  foreigner  to 


The  book  is  a  treasury." — M.  ROMERO, 
Mexican  Minister  at  Washington. 


A  Treasury  of  Romance,  Legend,  History,  Picturesque  Des 
cription,  Valuable  Information,  and  Genial  Humor. 

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gilt  edges  ;  Half  Morocco,  gilt  edges. 

SOLD  ONLY  BY  SUBSCRIPTION.       SEND  FOR  CIRCULAR. 


FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


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The    HUMAN    MYSTERY    in    HAMLET.     An 

Attempt  to  Say  an  Unsaid  Word  :  with  Suggestive  Parallelisms 
from  the  Elder  Poets.  By  MARTIN  W.  COOKE,  A.M.,  President 
N.  Y.  State  Bar  Association.  i6mo.  Vellum  cloth,  gilt  top,  $i. 

spiration  from  Greek  and  Roman  class 
ics,  while  '  bettering  their  instruction.' 
He  certainly  makes  out  an  excellent 
case,  and  has  done  it  with  remarkable 


"  The  author  believes  he  has  a  theory 
that  will  account  for  all  the  facts,  har 
monize  conflicting  views  as  to  Hamlet's 
'insanity'  or  '  feigned  insanity,'  and 
show  that  Shakespeare  drew  much  in- 


clearness  and  attractive  interest 


"  Unhackneyed.  ...  A  really  original 
work  of  fiction." — Boston  Gazette, 


BLACK  ICE.  A  Story  of  a  Northern  Winter.  By 
ALBION  W.  TOURGEE,  author  of  "A  Fool's  Errand,"  "Bricks 
without  Straw,"  etc.  i6mo,  435  pp.  Cloth,  $i. 

"  He  has  a  peculiar  faculty  of  getting 
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of  life  and  quaint  characters,  which 
fascinate  the  reader  and  hold  the  un 
divided  attention.  His  portraitures  pass 
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— real  men  and  women,  clothed  in  veri 
table  flesh  and  blood.  The  reader  feels 
that  he  is  in  the  midst  of  life.  This  is 
why  any  book  from  the  pen  of  Judge 
Tourgee  meets  with  a  hearty  welcome." 
—  Utica  (N.  y.)  Daily  Press. 


"  Thoroughly  interesting." — Chicago 
Inter-Ocean. 

"Strange  and  exciting." — Art  Ama 
teur,  New  York. 

"  Fresh  and  entertaining." — Congre- 
gationalist,  Boston. 

"  We  have  to  confess  to  having  read 
400  pages  at  a  sitting." — Daily  Ameri 
can^  Nashville. 


NORWAY  NIGHTS  and  RUSSIAN  DAYS.    The 

Record  of  a  Pleasant  Summer  Tour.  By  Mrs.  S.    M.    HENRY 

DAVIS,  author  of  "Life  and  Times  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney."      With 

many  Illustrations.     Decorated   cloth,  $1.25;    half  calf,   gilt  top, 
uncut,  $2.50. 

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written." — New  York  Commercial  Ad 
vertiser. 


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delicate  are  print  and  paper,  with 
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ing."—  The  Critic,  New  York. 


EPICS  and  ROMANCES  of  the  MIDDLE  AGES. 

Adapted  from  the  German  of   Dr.  W.  WAGNER.     500  pp.,  8vo. 


Cloth,  gilt  edges,  $2. 

etc.),  Tristan  and  Isolde,  and  all  the 
rich,  romantic  realm  from  which  Rich 
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tion." — Literary  World,  Boston. 


Numerous  spirited  Illustrations. 

"  Presenting  familiarly  the  stirring 
legends  of  the  Amelungs,  the  Dietrichs, 
the  Niebelungenlied,  Charlemagne  and 
his  Knights,  King  Arthur  and  the  Holy 
Grail  (Lohengrin,  Parsifal,  Tannhaiiser, 

PRINCIPLES  of  ART.     Part  I.— ART  IN  HISTORY, 

its  causes,  nature,  development,  and  different  stages  of  progression. 
Part  II. — ART  IN  THEORY,  its  aims,  motives  and  manner  of  ex 
pression.  By  JOHN  C.  VAN  DYKE,  Librarian,  Sage  Library,  New 
Brunswick,  N.  J. ;  recently  editor  of  The  Studio,  New  York.  I2mo, 
vellum  cloth,  $1.50. 

"  A  clear  exposition  of  the  principles 
of  art,  couched  in  the  simplest  language. 
...  It  pays  to  read  a  book  like  this — 
pays  anybody."— Philadelphia  Press. 

"  Thickly  set  with  points  of  interest, 
judiciously  taken  anr1  intelligently  sus 


tained." —  The  Dial,  Chicago. 


"  The  amount  of  interesting  informa 
tion  that  the  book  contains  is  of  itself  a 
justification  for  its  appearance." — The 
A  rt  Review,  New  York. 

"  As  a  rapid,  bright  series  of  historical 
narrations  the  book  is  beyond  compute 
a  perfect  treasury." — Graphic,  N.  Y. 


FORDS,  HOW/iRD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


"  May  be  said  to  be  a  perpetual  passport  to  the  minor  kingdoms  of  nature.  It 
is  the  work  of  an  accomplished  and  practical  naturalist  who  is  hand  and  glove  (so 
to  speak)  with  the  populace  of  the  leaves  and  fields,  the  woods  and  waters."—^.  Y. 
Mail  and  Express. 

TENANTS  OF  AN  OLD  FARM: 

Leaves  from  the   Note-Book  of  a  Naturalist. 

By  Dr.  HENRY  C.  McCooK,  author  of  "  Honey  and  Occident  Ants/' 
"Agricultural  Ants  of  Texas,"  etc.;  Vice-Pres.  Acad.  Nat.  Sciences, 
Philadelphia,  etc.  Profusely  illustrated,  for  Science,  after  Sketches  by 
the  author;  for  comical  characterizations  of  Insect  Life  by  DAN  C.  BEARD. 
Small  410,  460  pages.  Well  indexed.  New  Popitlar  Edition,  $i  50. 
A  delightful  series  of  excursions  and  investigations  into  the  habits  of 
bees,  ants,  spiders,  crickets,  and  many  varieties  of  insects. 

nected  with  them,  and  other  points  fitted 
to  arrest  and  hold  the  attention." — Bor* 


Of  Scientific  Worth. 

"  Of  special  value,  for  we  have  in  it 
a  popular  account  of  scientific  subjects 
by  one  who  has  himself  observed  every 
thing  he  describes.  The  scientific  state 
ments  of  the  author  are  not  only  reliable, 
but  coming  directly  from  nature  they 
still  retain  evidence  of  direct  contact 
with  life,  which  is  so  sure  to  disappear 
with  too  many  repetitions."  —  Science. 

"  Probably  there  is  no  one  in  America 
who  is  better  fitted  to  guide  the  young 
in  the  study  of  his  sphere  of  natural  his 
tory."  —  Sunday  School  Times,  Phila. 

"Of  the  highest  order  of  interest. 
The  author  has  made  studies  and  draw 
ings  of  the  insects  which  can  be  found 
on  any  old  farm,  and  has  made  discov 
eries  which  give  him  a  high  place  among 
entomologists."  —  Chicago  Advance. 

"  Dr.  McCpok  is  an  enthusiastic  nat 
uralist,  and  in  one  particular  branch  of 
study—  that  of  the  habits  of  ants  and 
spiders—  stands  as  high  as  any  living 
writer."—  Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"  Mr.  McCook  '  as  literally  lived 
among  his  pets,  has  studied  them  oy  day 


and  by  night  in  their  natural  state,  has 

not  scruple 

formidable  stings,  and  has  deemed  no 


not  scrupled  to  subject  himself  to  their 


pains  too  great  to  make  the  world  ac 
quainted  with  insects  upon  which  he 
looks  with  a  species  of  respectful  vener 
ation.  He  is,  in  truth,  a  veritable  en 
thusiast,  and  it  would  indeed  seem  as 
though  ants,  bees  and  wasps,  all  be 
longing  to  the  same  order  of  insects, 
possessed  a  fascination  for  the  true 
naturalist  far  greater  th  that  excited 
by  larger  animals."  —  Th.  Westminster 
Review  (British). 

Attractive. 

"  Delightful  talks  on  the  characteris 
tics  and  habjts  of  insects,  the  part  they 
play  in  the  economy  of  the  animal  and 
vegetable  world,  the  superstitions  con- 


ton  Advertiser. 

"  Belongs  to  a  claaS  which  might  with 
great  profit  take  the  place  of  much  of  the 
literature,  sentimental  and  otherwise, 
which  finds  its  way  into  the  hands  of  our 
children  through  Sunday  School  and 
other  libraries.  It  is  pleasantly  written, 
and  beautifully  illustrated  with  original 
drawings  from  nature."  —  Neiv  York 
Examiner. 

"  Mr.  Dan  Beard  has  brightened  it  by  a 
great  many  comical  adaptations,  sketch 
ing  spiders,  ants  and  other  dramatis 
personce  in  keeping  with  his  facetious 
conception  of  their  characters ;  while 
the  matter-of-fact  natural  history  draw 
ings  (of  marked  excellence)  are  by  Mr. 
Edward  Shepard  and  Mr.  Frank  Stout" 
[after  the  author's  sketches  from  na 
ture]. — Boston  Literary  World. 

Worth  Having  or  Giving. 

"  The  book  is  a  beautiful  one,  and 
would  make  a  charming  present  to  one 
of  scientific  tastes." — Chicago  Advance. 

"The  scientific  accuracy,  the  good 
illustrations  and  simple  descriptions 
make  it  a  valuable  book  for  amateurs 
and  a  good  book  of  reference  for  ad 
vanced  students  in  that  department  of 
natural  history."— Springfield  Republi 
can. 

"  A  charming  account  of  a  series  of  ex 
cursions  over  woodlawn  and  meadow, 
and  is  full  of  a  great  variety  of  informa 
tion  about  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  in 
sects,  written  by  a  naturalist  of  acknowl 
edged  authority."— Boston  Post. 

"  Contains  the  results  of  a  series  of 
carefully  conducted  observations  on  diff 
erent  species  of  insects. their  dispositions 
and  habits,  all  of  which  are  detailed  in 
such  a  familiar,  winning  style  that  no 
one  can  fail  to  be  fascinated  with  the 
study. '' — New  York  Observer. 


FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT,  New  York. 


BOOKS    FOR   THE    HOUSEHOLD. 


The  EASIEST  WAY  in  HOUSEKEEPING  and 
COOKING.     By  HELEN  CAMPBELL.     Cloth,  $1.00. 


"  By  all  odds  the  completest  household 
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"Admirable  in  matter,  cheap  in  price,  i 
seems  well  calculated  to  supply  the  mis 
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The    HOUSEKEEPER'S    YEAR     BOOK.      By 

HELEN  CAMPBELL.     Limp  cloth,  50  cents. 


"  Gives  a  sort  of  culinary  almanac  for 
the  year,  with  various  instructions  for 
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months ;  menus  for  the  table  ;  useful  in- 
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and  outline 
, ,  '  household 
hints,'  etc." — Chicago  Standard. 


MATERNITY:    A   Popular  Treatise  for  Wives 

and  Mothers.    Eighth  Edition.     By  TULLIO  S.  VERDI,  A.M., 
M.D.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $2.00. 

A  monitor  to  young  wives,  a  guide  to  young  mothers,  and  arc 
assistant  to  the  family  physician.  Treating  of  the  needs,  dangers, 
and  alleviations  of  the  duties  of  maternity,  and  giving  extended  de 
tailed  instructions  for  the  care  and  medical  treatment  of  infants  and 
children. 


"  A  carefully  written  and  very  com 
prehensive  work,  whose  author  has  for 
years  been  well  known  in  Washington 
as  an  unusually  able  and  successful 


practitioner.  ...  In  short,  the  whole 
contents  will  be  at  once  recognized  by 
any  sensible  woman  as  constituting  a 
safe  friend  and  guide." — N.  Y.  Times. 


THE  INFANT  PHILOSOPHER:  Stray  Leaves 

from  a  Baby's  Journal.     By  TULLIO  S.  VERDI,   A.M.,  M.D. 
Parchment  Paper,  30  cents;    Vellum  Cloth,  50  cents. 

"  Amusing  as  this  booklet  is,  its  object 
not  frivolous,  nor  even  literary ;  but 


the  serious  one  of  presenting  the  matter 
of  the  child's  needs  from  the  child's 
standpoint.  .  .  .  The  good  sense  and 
long  experience  of  the  most  observing 
of  the  profession  is  embodied  in  a  new 
form  of  quaint  simplicity." — The  Inde 
pendent,  N.  Y. 
"  In  its  combination  of  simplicity,  wit 


and  wisdom,  the  book  is  unique.  Every 
body  who  has  had  to  do  with  an  '  Infant 
Philosopher'  of  his  own,  will  find  the 
'  Stray  Leaves '  both  comical  and  pro 
fitable  reading." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  Every  young  mother  should  be  fur 
nished  with  a  copy  of  this  dainty  bro 
chure,  which  is  as  much  a  book  of 
practical  sense  as  it  is  a.jeu  d*  esprit" — 
Evening  Bulletin  (Philadelphia). 


BLAKELEE'S  INDUSTRIAL  CYCLOPAEDIA. 

How  TO  MAKE  AND  MEND.     Giving  easy  forms  for  doing  All 

Kinds  of  Work,  indoor  and  out,  with  LENGTHS,  BREADTHS,  and 

DEPTHS,  and  How  to  PUT  TOGETHER.    By  GEORGE  E.  BLAKELEE, 

Practical    Mechanic,    and    former    Editor  of   the    Ohio   Farmer. 

Practical  instructions  for  doing  more  than  2000  Common  Things. 

Above  700  pajres,  8vo.     200  Illustrations.     Cloth,  S3.  75;  Cloth  dec 

orated,  red  edges,  $4.25;  Library  Leather 


It  is  comprehensive,  covering  the 
main  practical  operations  that  come  up 
'"•*  every  day  life."  —  The  Homestead, 

•ingfic    ' 


in 

tyri. 


Mass. 


$5.00. 

"Hard  to  overestimate  its  value."— 
Orange  Co.  Farmer,  Portjerins,  N.  Y. 

"  Will  much  more  than  pay  its  cost  in 
a  very  short  time." — Conn.  Farmer: 
Hartford,  Conn. 


FORDS,  HOWARD,  &   HULBERT,  New  York. 


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